


What You Wish For

by KnifeEdge



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Adult Sarah Williams (Labyrinth), Bargains, Birthday, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Jareth's not a dick, Kinda Fluffy, Lie Detector, New Year's Eve, Sarah's not a pushover or belligerent, Slow Build, UST, Wishes, kinda sexy, nothing graphic, questions and answers, quid pro quo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15932849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnifeEdge/pseuds/KnifeEdge
Summary: Some advice: The way forward is sometimes the way back. Take nothing for granted. Look before you leap. Things aren't always what they seem. Remember, Faeries bite. And most of all, be careful what you wish for...(Originally posted on Fanfiction.net in 2006)





	1. Twelve

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of a story I originally wrote back in 2006 over on fanfiction.net. You can still find it there, and I'm adding it here, as originally written. 
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer:
> 
> I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or any of the characters that reside there. 
> 
> Dedicated to Phuriedae...the best beta ever. Thank you for all your encouragement, insight, and inspiration.

The trouble, Sarah thought, with having your birthday land on New Year's Eve, was that you were never entirely certain whether people were being honest with you. Inevitably, someone would throw a party, to which you would be invited. Provided that person was a friend or family member, it was almost a guarantee that at some point during the evening, an extremely overdone cake would be wheeled out of nowhere and people would start singing Happy Birthday.

Drunkenly.

Badly.

Like now, for instance.

What she felt unsure of was whether people threw the party for her first, and New Years was the afterthought; or, more depressingly, they were having a big party anyway and had decided to kill two birds with the proverbial stone.

She rather suspected the latter.

This year, the party thrower was her friend Caitlyn—a blonde, stick-like, social butterfly that Sarah had met in her second year of college, during a stage movement class. Caitlyn wasn't really into theater, she'd whispered to Sarah when their professor had begun floating around the other end of the room. She was only taking stage movement to lose her duck-like way of walking—the result of being born without blades on her feet, Sarah discovered later, when she saw Caitlyn perform a perfect double axel and land gracefully on one skate clad foot.

Still, Sarah thought, she'd been a good friend, which was why she had flown across the country to be here for this shindig. When one of Sarah's friends asked for her support, she gave it. Loyalty was important to her. Even if it cost her a half a day stuck in airports and on planes.

Motive, Sarah had learned during her years of studying acting and directing and script analysis, was everything.

Caitlyn's motive tonight was to have a really big, really glitzy party to impress her (hopefully) soon-to-be-fiancé, Rick. She had really pulled out all the stops too, Sarah thought as she scanned the room for possible exits. The room might have started the evening as a banquet hall at an upscale Florida golfing resort, but it had been transformed by what seemed like miles of gold and white drapery, which masked the paintings of tweed clad golfers and turned the walls into gently billowing waves of glittering fabric. The chandeliers had been dimmed a bit, and realistic looking electric candelabras lent an old world air to the place.

It was the guests, however, who had really transformed the party into something else. Caitlyn had claimed that she'd gone with a masquerade ball theme as a nod to Sarah's love of theater. However, she'd pointedly ignored the fact that Sarah had an aversion to masks of any sort. Again, motivation: masks are sexy, and Caitlyn was really gunning for Rick's attention. Which definitely explained her friend's choice of costume, which was some odd combination of Swan Princess and Catholic School Girl. If Rick didn't propose by the end of the night, Sarah thought, he was a moron.

She smoothed her hands over her sapphire blue evening gown and hoped they wouldn't leave sweat stains.

All these masks made her twitchy. Ten years later and she still had the occasional flashback, although they'd gotten a little hazier with time. Always, though, masks made her twitchy, and peaches made her want to throw up. She hoped there weren't any peaches in that cake.

Not a dream, she had decided. She'd always lived half in and half out of a dream world, but she knew enough to know that not everything in the world can be explained. There needed to be some magic. She just happened to have taken it for granted that if magic really existed, it wouldn't harm her. How wrong she'd been.

She was more careful now. She avoided surprises. She phrased things carefully. She never broke mirrors, or walked under ladders, or said the name of the Scottish play in the theater. There was magic out there, and it didn't always play nice and fair. Fairies weren't sweet, and handsome princes weren't always charming.

But that didn't mean she'd stopped dreaming about them.

Even now, surrounded by beautiful masked people in glittering costumes, and she the undesired center of their attention—especially now—she caught herself scanning the crowd for a glimpse of blonde hair, or the glitter of a blue coat.

"...Happy Birthday to you!" A few drunken giggles trailed off afterward, and she thought she heard someone start the refrain about the monkey before someone else shut them up.

"Go on, Sarah, make a wish!" Caitlyn said. Sarah blinked. A wish?

Three feet of sugar and chocolate and candles stared back at her, waiting.

If there was one thing Sarah was more careful with than anything else, it was wishes. Never, never did she take a wish lightly. The phrase "Oh, I wish..." never left her lips. What she wouldn't have given to be able to not think about wishes the way everyone else did. But there was a ten and a half year old boy out there who was living proof that wishes could have unintended results.

She should have gotten past all this, she told herself. She was an adult now, and real or not, she was no longer the bratty dreamer who had wished away a helpless baby. But she couldn't let it go. The trouble was, there was no way to analyze it, really. Her thoughts twisted back in on themselves every time she tried. Was it a dream? Was it real? If it was a dream, how could she explain those missing hours? Or finding herself standing in her foyer with an owl sweeping above her head? Or the party that had happened afterwards in her room until her parents had come upstairs to investigate the noise and she'd been forced to usher everyone back through the mirror in a hurry?

And if it was real, how did she explain the end? The Escher room? The offer? He'd fought to keep her brother, but in the end he'd begged for her. It might have all been part of the game, a ploy to turn her dreamy and romantic head, to appeal to her selfishness. But some part of her still wondered if there'd been more than that. He'd seemed so...sincere. Probably more romantic adolescent nonsense, but how would she know for sure? She had no distance from it.

And here she was, ten years later, all grown up and terribly alone. Who could she tell? Who could she talk to? Every relationship she tried to have ended more quickly than it began. There was this great big maze in the way of everything, always whispering to her from her memories, always reminding her that things aren't always what they seem. That faces are nothing more than masks that can be removed to reveal goblins underneath. That...

"Sometime this YEAR, Sarah!" Someone shouted, and a host of people laughed. She blushed, and leaned forward. It wasn't like they really expected her to make a wish. Just pretend, she told herself. Act, like she used to on the stage before she realized she made a much better director. She smiled, took a deep breath, and...

_I wish Jareth were here tonight. I wish I could talk to him. I wish I could ask him all those questions that I never had answered. I wish he would take off his mask. I wish..._

Unbidden, the thoughts swirled through her mind, the last so softly whispered in the back of her heart that even she didn't hear what she wished. She exhaled sharply in surprise.

And blew out every candle on the cake at once.


	2. Eleven

The crowd erupted with applause and laughs, catcalls and whistles. The cake was wheeled back to the caterer to be sliced and passed around to the guests. People drifted back to the bar to refill their glasses, and the band stationed at the other end of the room struck up a cover of some popular song.

And Sarah sat, frozen, and wondered if it mattered that she hadn't said it out loud.

" _Say your right words,_ _the goblins said..."_

But she hadn't said them. She'd only thought them. Right?

"Sarah?" Jen, her old roommate, who had kindly offered to put her up for the week and a half she'd be in town, was elegantly costumed as the Queen of Hearts. She put her hand on Sarah's shoulder and shook her a little. "You alright?"

Sarah blinked up at her, and tried on a smile. It wobbled a little, but she hoped Jen wouldn't notice. "Yeah," she said. There was no thunder. No lightning. No owls soaring in through the open doors to the patio. "I'm just... it's a little...claustrophobic... in here."

"C'mon. We'll get a drink and go find a spot outside to sit. Thank god for Florida winters," Jen patted her shoulder comfortingly. She knew how Sarah felt about closed in spaces, although she'd never asked why. Together they wended their way through the crowds around the dance floor, and stopped to pick up a bottle of water for Sarah and a daiquiri for Jen.

"You," she told Sarah, as they finally found an empty table in a dark corner of the patio, "are a walking tragedy. Imagine, being your age and never had a drink. I'm sure it's illegal."

Sarah cracked the cap on her bottled water and took a long, soothing swallow. "I never saw the need." _And I never trusted myself not to get drunk and start wishing for things best not wished for_ , she thought.

_Like I just did_ , she added reproachfully, _while stone cold sober_.

"Still, there's something not right about being a designated driver for your own birthday party," Jen continued, poking at the candle votive in the middle of the table absently.

"It's not really," Sarah said.

"Not what? Your birthday?"

"No. I mean, yes, it's my birthday. But this isn't really my birthday party, is it?" She gestured at the half dozen people sitting near them. "It never really is. People just use my birthday as an excuse to have a big cake."

"That's a rather cynical way of looking at it," Jen said. Then she paused as she looked at the people around them again. "Do you know," she said after a minute, "I have no bloody clue who any of these people are?"

"Neither do I," Sarah said dryly, and they both laughed.

"Look at that guy," Jen said, pointing with her chin. "What's he supposed to be? A transformer?"

"I think he's supposed to be the Tin Man. That brunette drooling all over him is wearing ruby slippers."

"Doesn't she know that the Tin Man is gay?" Jen said, smirking.

"No, but the Scarecrow does," Sarah observed, "he's got his hand on the other thigh."

"Oh, ew," Jen laughed, but she watched a little longer.

Sarah relaxed a little as they giggled over the different guests. She hadn't said it. It didn't count. Besides, what was the real likelihood of something happening anyway? Maybe she'd used up her quota of magic. Maybe most people get their magic in little ways, all throughout their life, so small they never even notice it, but Sarah had burned all hers up in one shot when she was fourteen. The most magic she would have to worry about was whether or not her next show came together in time for opening night.

"Ah, there we go. That's more like it," Jen murmured approvingly. "Prince Charming, three o'clock."

"Hmm?" Sarah looked up from the flickering candle flame, into a pair of bright blue eyes that were not so subtly checking her out over the rim of a martini glass. Prince Charming, indeed, he looked like he'd stepped out of a Disney cartoon: perfect blonde hair, strong jaw, sensual lips that smiled a little when he caught her looking at him, revealing perfect white teeth. Broad shoulders, trim hips. Hell, he even had on a crown. And a cape. And a pair of very snug fitting pants.

Sarah fought a flashback to another pair of rather tight pants. _Grow_ _up_ , she admonished herself sternly.

"Oh, god, he's coming over here." Jen was actually fanning herself. Sarah tried not to wince. She pretended as though the ingredient list on her water bottle was suddenly very intriguing. _Actually_ , she thought, _why are there so many ingredients? It's just wa..._

"Hi," said the blonde Adonis who had finally made his way to their table.

Sarah thought she heard Jen squeak. "Hi," Sarah said, smiling up at him and trying not to look at his pants. "My friend's drink went down the wrong way." Prince Charming frowned and patted Jen on the back a couple of times.

"Better?" he asked. Jen squeaked out a yes. He smiled. It was like vanilla ice cream. "Two such pretty girls shouldn't be sitting over here all alone. I thought I'd come over and keep you company."

"Please," Jen managed. "Sit!" She gestured to an empty chair nearby. He gave Sarah a melting smile, then turned to fetch the chair. Jen started shooting meaningful glances at her friend behind his back, mouthing _he likes you, flirt with him doofus!_ Sarah laughed.

"Oh! Sorry!," Prince Charming said. "I didn't see you there!"

"Obviously," drawled a low, gravely voice to Sarah's right. "Most people don't." A shiver trickled down her spine. That voice, the slight accent, the clipped consonants, was strangely familiar. The butterflies she'd thought gone suddenly swarmed in her stomach. She turned to see Charming staring at what had previously been an unoccupied chair at a nearby empty table (she was sure of it) a little confusedly. He glanced around until he found another chair, and pulled it up a bit sheepishly, flipping his cape out of his way as he sat.

Sarah wasn't paying much attention; she was too busy trying to see the man at the next table. All she could see was his back, the back of his neck, and his short, pale blonde hair, which was layered in a little bit of a punk cut that left it sticking up all over, and a little longer in the front than in the back. She studied the edge of his ears, which looked normal enough, if a bit pinched at the tips. He was wearing a very expensive looking black tuxedo coat, and she could just make out the edge of a gray silk shirt. He was turned away from her, looking through the glass windows at the dancers inside.

_It couldn't be him? Could it?_ A hint of fear brushed her, then. _No. Surely not_.

"...Sarah?" Jen said, touching her arm and bringing her back to reality. "This is Chester. Chet." She nudged her in the ribs. "He's an _actor_." Now Jen's eyebrows were wriggling like drunken caterpillars trying to navigate across a highway.

"Oh," Sarah said, disappointment settling over her. "What have you done?" Chet ( _what an unfortunate name_ , she thought) pulled his chair a little closer to her and settled in for a long list. Sarah watched his animated face as he listed the shows he'd done and where. He really did have a great face, she thought. A little Brendan Frasier, with the same sort of vacuous eyes. His voice was nice, too, if a bit percussive.

"...heard you were going to be doing Phantom, and I thought, wow, this is my chance. You know, that's such a great part for me. I was like, born to play that part."

Sarah frowned. "You definitely have the look for Raoul."

"Raoul?" Now Chet was frowning. "Yes, but, I've really got a much better voice for the Phantom. We could put some makeup on me, and you know, die my hair or something."

"Mmmm," Sarah said, noncommittally. There were times being careful with what you said could come in handy. In her peripheral vision she saw an elegant black clad shoulder shake a little, as if with silent laughter. Inside, the band was leading into a slow song. "Oh," she said, "I love this song. It's so romantic to dance to."

"I'd be honored to dance with someone as gorgeous as you," he said, flashing what Sarah figured were probably porcelain veneers.

"Oh, I'm still a little claustrophobic from before. But Jen hasn't danced yet tonight," Which was a lie, but how would he know? "I bet you two would dance stunningly together. Did I tell you she sometimes choreographs for my shows?"

"Really?" Chet's face lit up. "Well, never let it be said that I left a lovely lady without a dance." He offered Jen one of his hands and, blushing, she let him lead her inside.

Sarah frowned at his back. "That didn't even make sense," she muttered.

"Now, now, Sarah," that cultured voice murmured in her ear. "Mocking the mortals? Tsk, tsk."

She hadn't seen him get up, hadn't heard his chair move, but he was behind her now, moving to take the seat Jen had just vacated. Her heart was somewhere in the vicinity of her vocal cords as she slowly turned to watch him slide into the chair with the grace of a long limbed cat.

She thought she knew what to expect. She thought she knew him. But she hadn't known him at all.


	3. Ten

Shock poured through her, ice in her veins, as she studied him. The differences were minute, but they were just enough to rearrange her perceptions of the world a little more. His hair was shorter, she'd already seen that, but the puckish cut suited him and made her fingers itch to push the fine hair off his forehead. His eyes were a colder blue than Chet's, the one abnormally dilated pupil making the left eye a shade darker than the right. The brows were still upswept, but not nearly as steeply as she remembered, and the glam rock makeup was gone. His lips were thinner than Chet's, but more sensual, and his teeth white and sharp. His clothes were very human, from the black coat she'd noted earlier, to the gray silk shirt that was unbuttoned to show off the pale column of his throat. His pants were utterly normal, if expensive, slacks. His shoes were lost in the shadows under the table, but she had the feeling they'd probably been made by Gucci not goblins.

His hands were gloved.

He said nothing, just sat there, watching her with calculating eyes and sipping occasionally from a glass of wine. She was suddenly aware of every inch of skin her dress revealed, even though it was fairly modest compared to what Caitlyn and Jen were wearing. She could feel the breeze stirring the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, where her long dark hair was swept up. Strangely, she'd expected to feel like a child again, facing him. Instead, she was excruciatingly aware of the fact that she was a woman now, and her reaction to his presence was ten times stronger.

Now that she was old enough to recognize the aura around him as predatory, and that the scent coming off of him was laden with the promise of sex.

"You've changed," she said, feeling the need to break the silence. She'd heard of having a "fight or flight" reaction before, but never a "fuck or flight" reaction. Her body was screaming at her to throw herself at him and tear the buttons on his shirt off with her teeth, while her mind was begging her to run now, while she had a chance.

"Not really," he said. His eyes were measuring. What, she wasn't sure. "It's not in our nature to change very much, or often. It happens much more slowly than you'd think." He leaned forward and smiled a little when she stiffened in her chair, but he only put his glass down on the table and leaned back again. His eyes ran over her. "You, on the other hand, have changed a great deal."

Her hormones were "amen"-ing like a gospel choir.

"But, your hair, and your..." She blushed.

"Pants?" He quirked an eyebrow. "We can discuss those later. As for the hair, the 80's metal band look was all you, love." Confused she let her gaze lock with his.

"Excuse me?"

"Come, come, Sarah." ( _Yes! yes!_ her hormones cried.) "Weren't you listening, there at the end? 'Everything, I've done, I've done for you.' 'You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me, and I was frightening." His eyes were intense. "I knew what you dreamed of, and I made myself and my Labyrinth fit your dreams."

"Why?" she asked. Oh, this hurt.

"Because, I play to win. It's what I do. My job, if you will." She knew that. Had known that, but still, it bothered her to hear it.

"But, you didn't win," she said.

His eyes glittered strangely, and a slight smile played around his lips. "Oh? Didn't I?"

"Sarah! You didn't get any ca...," Jen's voice trailed off as she realized her chair was occupied. "Oh, I didn't see you. I'm sorry."

He waved a gloved hand, regally, and smiled, "That seems to be a recurring problem this evening. Perhaps I should have worn something less inconspicuous." Sarah watched nervously as her friend instinctively responded to the promise in that smile and swayed forward a little, leaning down to expose a bit more cleavage.

"Mmmm," she said, glancing briefly at Sarah. " _Accent,"_ she said pointedly, then grinned a bit foolishly at the man who had stolen her chair. He smiled back. It wasn't a very nice smile.

Her hormones fled for the hills as memory came screaming back. The Goblin King blocking the way to her baby brother. The snake he'd thrown at her. The dangerous flash of his eyes in the tunnels, before he'd rearranged the clock. The Cleaners. The sardonic stare he'd given her during the masked ball. The dark and sinister man who had taunted her in the Escher room.

_The other day, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. Oh, how I wish he'd go away..._ her brain chanted.

Fairies bite, she reminded herself. Take nothing for granted.

_But he only steals children_ , a small part of her whispered.

_How do you know that?_ She reminded herself. _Because a book told you? Don't be foolish, be careful._

Chet chose that moment to reappear.

"Hey," he said, friendly enough. Then he smiled at Jen who was eyeing the lap of the dark man before her speculatively. "Don't worry," Chet said, his hand a little possessive on Jen's arm, all of a sudden. "You can share my seat." Sarah thought her friend looked like she was in heaven as Chet pulled her down onto his lap. For her part, Sarah was too busy studying the two men before her, trying to put her finger on what it was that made one more attractive than the other.

Danger, she decided.

Chet had a face Michelangelo would have been itching to carve. The man on her left (some part of her mind still refused to acknowledge that he was who he was), was all planes and angles and delicately sculpted bones, with a very slight sinister quality. The sort of face it would be hard to capture in any medium. An ageless face, she thought, as she realized he hadn't aged a day. Both men had blue eyes, but while Chet's were wide and guileless, with a healthy amount of honest lust in them when he snuggled Jen down on his lap, the other pair were mismatched and inscrutable, icy calm with a cold kind of calculation lurking just behind them.

He turned that disconcerting gaze away from her to regard the hand Chet had stretched across the table.

"Sorry about earlier, man," Chet said. "Name's Chet. You a friend of Sarah's?"

"An old acquaintance," he said, cocking his head a little to the side and still watching Chet's outstretched hand curiously. Like a cat, Sarah thought. Clearly Chet took no offense, as he shrugged and withdrew his hand, using it instead to settle Jen a little more firmly across his thighs.

"You don't have a mask or a costume," Jen said. He was quiet for a long moment, then the corners of his lips quirked up.

"Sarah asked that I not wear one."

For a moment, she literally felt her heart stop beating. Oh, no, she thought. He'd heard her.

Chet laughed. "So what are you pretending to be, then?"

Jareth smiled, his teeth glittering. "Human."

Jen and Chet laughed at that, but Sarah felt herself go very still. Who _was_ this man? What was he?

The only thing she knew for certain was that he was dangerous. That he was here at all meant that he wanted something from her, posed a threat to her, perhaps even more now than he had before. And here he was, sitting at a table with one of her closest friends and a man who probably wouldn't know danger if it bit him in the ass.

At least, she thought, Toby was safe at home, a whole time zone away.

Then remembered that, if her memory wasn't playing tricks on her, distance meant nothing to the Goblin King.

She had to know what kind of threat he was. She needed to know why he was here, and what he wanted. She needed answers. And she needed to keep him far, far away from Jen, who was trying to wriggle in Chet's lap at the same time as she was leaning over a little to entice the dark and sinister man across from her.

She stood up, abruptly.

"Sarah, are you alright?" Jen asked.

"Fine," she said, as lightly as she could, while meeting Jareth's cold stare with one of her own. "I just need to get up and walk a bit. Would you keep me company?" She asked him, hoping he wouldn't refuse.

Terrified that he wouldn't refuse.


	4. Nine

He made her wait for an eternal moment, before he slid from his chair like a shadow. The candlelight turned his pale hair to gold, and caught the glitter of his sharp teeth. He came around the table and offered her his arm.

"Have fun," Chet said, and Jen giggled like a schoolgirl. Sarah swallowed her disgust. They were going to have to have a LONG talk about how much alcohol was good for Jen, later. If there was a later, she thought, as she slid her hand into the crook of Jareth's arm and allowed him to lead her through the crowded patio and out through the gate into the little garden area. There were a few people milling around the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, and some who were clearly enjoying the privacy of the shadows, but Jareth led her past them, and out onto a white gravel path that wound around the building, back toward the deserted golf course.

She couldn't even begin to start cataloging the reasons why this was a bad idea. Even had he been a normal man, there was safety in numbers and she was letting him take her away from the light, away from help if she needed it.

They walked in silence, her heels crunching unsteadily in the gravel-making her a little grateful for the warm steel of his arm steadying her. She'd chosen the simplest costume she could: a pretty sapphire ball gown with a squared neckline and tiny gauzy sleeves, and a rhinestone headband that looked a little like a tiara. Cinderella, she'd told Caitlyn, when she'd asked who she was supposed to be. And now she was running away from the ball, and she wished she could lose her shoes because she could run faster barefoot than in the delicate heels if for some reason she needed to bolt. Unfortunately, this Cinderella had chosen heels with straps around the ankles.

"You're thinking too hard," Jareth said, his breath fanning over her throat. She froze. She hadn't even noticed that they'd stopped and he'd stepped behind her. They stood on the short green grass of the course, looking over a pond that probably served as an excellent water hazard. The wind stirred the leaves in the trees and the moonlight had gilded everything with silver and gold. She shivered.

"Afraid, Sarah?" He said mockingly.

"No," she lied, turning and smiling up into his face. "Curious."

"Oh?" He said, and stepped back, sliding his gloved hands into the pockets of his pants, and looking ridiculously handsome. His winged eyebrows arched a little.

"Why are you here?" She asked.

"Why do you think?" He said.

"I wished you here," she said. He smiled coldly.

"Honestly, Sarah," he said. "I have had about enough of granting your wishes. You're very ungrateful."

"What?"

"I'm here, not because you wished it, but because I did," he said. Sarah fought the urge to sit down right there in the grass. Her knees felt funny.

"But I thought—"

His smile mocked her as he turned away, looking out over the water. "You always did assume too much." She had no response for that. It was true, and the truth bit deep.

"Do you think," he said mildly, "that it's easy answering wishes?"

"I never really thought...," she started, but he whirled then and his eyes were terribly inhuman looking in the moonlight. They were old, older than she could imagine, and she knew then that he hadn't been lying when he'd told them he was only pretending to be human. Whatever this man was, standing in front of her, he wasn't human. He was wearing a human face and a human body, but whatever was underneath that facade was ancient and terrible and powerfully dangerous.

"You don't think," he said, a low growl in his voice. "Wishes always come with a cost, Sarah. To both the wisher and the one who grants it. And I'm here to collect on your debt."

"My debt?" Her mind was reeling in confusion. Whatever she had expected, it wasn't this.

" _Your_ debt," he said. "But seeing as I'm a generous man, we'll level the playing field a little. You wanted answers. I'm prepared to give them. But..." and he paused while her mind tried to grasp what he was offering, "for every true and honest answer I give, _you_ must grant me a wish."

"Me?" She said, a little shocked. "But I have no magic."

"Don't you?" He said, then smiled. "I promise, I won't wish for anything you cannot grant."

He was playing with her, she thought. Teasing her like a cat with a mouse. He was offering her a chance to understand something she'd never be able to understand otherwise. A chance to lay all those uneasy questions to rest. A chance to understand him, and maybe for her to move on. It was very tempting, if for no other reason than to understand the man before her, which she discovered, to her surprise, she really wanted to do. But what price would he exact?

"However," he said, "whether you want to play our game or not, you still owe me my debt. There's the little matter of a stolen child and a spoiled girl who wasted my time wishing away something she had no intention of giving up in the first place. You owe me one for that, at least."

"I won him back!" She cried, suddenly furious.

"And in the process I wasted precious time and energy doing exactly what you asked me to do! For what? For you to throw it back in my face like the ungrateful little brat you were. Not only that, you destroyed a thousand year old bridge—"

"It was falling apart anyway!" She could feel herself bristling, angry as she'd once been with her stepmother.

"And a VERY expensive gate guardian. Not to mention the cost of repairing the damn city after you nearly destroyed it."

"If your goblins were better soldiers it wouldn't have been destroyed. Your army is a joke."

"My _army_ isn't an army," he sneered. "Honestly. The last thing in the world goblins are good at is fighting _en masse_ , but you wanted a battle, so I gave you a battle. That was part of YOUR little dream, _not_ my reality."

She turned away and started walking blindly. Her whole body was shaking with indignation. _She'd wanted a battle?_ She'd never wished for that. Never once said, 'Gee Mr. Goblin King, come take my baby brother away and make me fight off a whole hoard of goblins to get him back.' Never asked him to destroy his city. Never wanted a trip through the Bog, or to risk life and limb with the Fireys.

_Didn't you?_ a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind. _Didn't you lay awake at night, imagining being the heroine of such a story? Practicing for hours in front of your mirror those final lines that would mark you as a hero, as the savior of a small helpless life? Didn't you imagine a handsome and wicked Goblin King who would attempt to seduce you, but who you would ultimately triumph over in the end?_

Had he granted the wish she hadn't spoken?

And if he had... why?

She would never know if she didn't ask. And he wouldn't answer unless she granted his wishes.

It was another game, and she knew who would come out as the victor this time. He would have it no other way. She'd beaten him once, probably dented his enormous ego, and this was his revenge.

"I don't want revenge, Sarah," he said, stepping from the shadows under a tree several yards ahead of her ( _damn the man could move fast_ ). "Quid pro quo."

He approached until he was standing in front of her. His face was devoid of any emotion now, as cold and immobile as one of the ice sculptures Caitlyn had ordered for the buffet. She could read nothing in his mismatched eyes.

"One wish per answer," she said. He nodded. "And if you don't answer?"

"I will."

"And if I can't grant one of your wishes?"

"You can."

"If I won't?"

"Ah," a hint of amusement tinged his voice and tilted the corners of his lips. "You do have that choice. But then our bargain is voided, and I can retrieve that which you took from me. And there will be nothing you can do to stop me."

That which she had taken from him. There was only one thing she could think of that would qualify, and her heart froze within her at the thought. Toby.

Piece of mind, at a price. All she had to do was grant him a wish or two. He had promised it would be something she was capable of granting, so she assumed he wouldn't be wishing for piles of gold, or magic mirrors.

What if he wished she would give him back Toby?

"You needn't worry about Toby," he said then. "Our bargain is between you and I, and will involve no others, either directly or indirectly. Just you and I, Sarah."

"Stop reading my thoughts," she said, feeling relieved and violated at the same time. There was something rather indecent about that statement.

He only smiled knowingly. "I merely wanted to put your mind at ease."

"Well, you didn't." She said.

"Then will you refuse this opportunity?" He asked, as if it was of no importance to him. "Either way, I'll still collect my debt."

"Wait. Stop, let me think a minute," she said, putting up a hand and finding, to her surprise that it laid itself flat against his chest (which was, her hand reported back, rather solidly masculine and very warm, even through his clothing). For a moment, he looked surprised, too. Then he stepped back, tilted his head a little to one side, and merely watched her through inscrutable eyes.


	5. Eight

Either way he was collecting his debt. If she didn't play, she'd never know. And who knew what he'd wish for to repay that debt? If she played, she might lose her dignity (or your virtue, her hormones purred in anticipation), but she'd get her answers, at least. If she didn't, she'd lose whatever he asked for, plus her chance to know, and her pride.

_He promised it didn't involve Toby,_ she told herself... _unless I refuse to grant one of his wishes, of course. And you won't back down, no matter what. That's one prize he'll never win. But be careful, Sarah. Look for loopholes. He's older than you, and more powerful than you, and he probably knows every dirty trick in the book. Like poisoning peaches, for instance._

"How will I know if you're telling me the truth? You could be lying."

He managed to look offended. "I wouldn't do that."

"That's not quite good enough, for me," she said. "What I need is a lie detector...," she muttered.

"Fine," he said, shrugging a little. He slid one hand from his pocket, and a crystal rolled from nowhere, down his arm, over the back of his hand and around to his palm. He tossed it at her, and she instinctively threw up a hand to catch it, before remembering that none of his other crystals had held anything nice for her. She barely felt it's cool, heavy weight in her palm before she dropped it like a hot rock.

It bounced on the grass once, twice, and then paused, hovering six inches from the ground, as fragile looking as a bubble. Jareth laughed. "It won't bite."

"I'd rather not take any chances, if you don't mind." She nudged it with the toe of her shoe. It merely bobbed a little in mid air. "What is it?"

"A lie detector," he said. He slid one expensive shoe (yep, definitely not goblin made) under it, like a teenager with a hacky sack, and she watched it roll up his leg to his knee, where he expertly bounced it up and caught it in one hand. He reached out the other hand, took her gently by the wrist, turned her hand over and placed the crystal in her palm. "If one of us lies, it will glow red. Watch," he removed his gloved hand from the crystal.

"It is night here." The crystal remained clear.

"Sarah is a woman." No change.

"I'm human." Immediately, the crystal lit up in a bright red glow. Jareth smiled sharply.

"I'm the King of the Goblins." As suddenly as it had lit, the light went out.

"I like your dress." This time it glowed red again, but only half as brilliantly, and it wavered a little, as if unsure.

"What does that mean?" she said.

"A half truth. It senses that I'm only partially lying. Now if I said 'I love your dress,' ah... there, you see?" How could she not with the damn thing lit up like a stoplight?

"Actually, I hate your dress." It dimmed again, but not entirely. He frowned at it. "I almost like your dress." Still, it remained a dull, slightly wavering red. He gritted his teeth and growled at it. "I would like your dress much better if it were lying on my bedroom floor, and that's a true and honest answer." The red light went out. If a crystal could look smug, this one would have done so.

He sighed. "The things I do for you. Are you satisfied?"

"Not entirely," she said, scrambling to remember her other conditions. Her brain had taken a little holiday after his admission.

"Of course not. Why would I have expected otherwise? Go on then."

"I... You can't wish me under your power. No making me a slave, or anything like that," she said.

"The thought never even crossed my mind," he said dryly. The crystal in her hand flared to life. "Alright, fine, it crossed it. Several times. In excruciating detail. But it wouldn't work anyway. I have no power over you, remember? I cannot force you to do anything you don't want to do." The light went out.

"I'm suddenly very glad I asked for a lie detector," she said.

He only smiled sarcastically.

"You can't wish me Underground."

"I don't remember putting this many conditions on _your_ wishes," he said, petulantly. She frowned at him. "Fine! Will there be anything _else,_ princess?"

"You can't wish for me to do anything illegal, either. In my world or yours."

"Of course not," he said, sounding indignant that she would even suggest it. She chewed her lip for a minute. She could forbid him from wishing for anything physical from her but... she felt herself begin to blush hotly. Well, she could always stop asking questions whenever she wanted to finish the game, right?

"And just to be clear, neither your wishes nor your debt can affect anyone except me. I'll have your word that you'll leave my family alone," she said, finally, just to clear the point.

"As long as you continue to grant my wishes," he said wryly. "Any more rules to rob me of my fun? No?" She couldn't think of anything, so she shook her head. "Very well then, a few conditions of my own. No multiple part questions, any additional questions will be ignored. All wishes must be performed within a half hour from when I ask. Failure to perform within the half hour means you forfeit the game to me—"

"The same rule applies to questions and answers," she interrupted. "One half hour to answer, or you forfeit to me." He gritted his teeth, but nodded.

"Of course. Finally, I will collect my debt from you only after we've both agreed that the game has come to an end, whether that be because one of us has forfeited, or we've mutually agreed to finish it. In the unlikely event I am the one to forfeit, I still retain the right to collect on my original debt."

"What will you forfeit?" She asked suddenly, as it occurred to her that she could get something more out of this than simply answers. His eyes narrowed. "I mean, if you win, you—"

"Take back what's mine, we've established that."

"But if I win, what do I get?"

"What more could you possibly want? You really are a very selfish girl." Sarah was startled to note that the crystal in her hand turned a faint, but distinct red. He shot it a dirty look.

"A free wish, no debts owed." She held out a hand for him to shake. "Do you agree?"

He looked at her hand the same way he had looked at Chet's. Then he smiled, as if the answer had just dawned on him. He took her hand in one of his gloved ones, bowed over it, and brushed his lips over the sensitive skin of her fingers, which sent every hormone in her body crashing against each other in their eagerness to rush the stage. He smiled up at her through the fine fringe of his pale hair, just as the tip of his tongue touched the delicate webbing between two fingers. She fought to remain standing.

"Agreed," he said.

 


	6. Seven

He released her and looked around for a moment as though searching for something. She followed his gaze. It was a golf course, at night, under a clear sky with a waxing moon. Nothing the least bit remarkable about it.

Not unless you counted the Fae creature before her, of course.

Jareth frowned. "This won't do at all," he muttered.

Sarah turned to him curiously, about to ask if something was wrong when she felt a little dizzy. "Oh," she said, and he put out a hand to steady her. She looked at his hand on her arm for a moment, puzzled. He'd barely touched her, the entire time she'd been in the Labyrinth (unless you counted the peach dream, which she didn't; if she had no way of measuring how real her time in the Labyrinth was, she was at a total loss to explain that bit). But now, for some reason, he couldn't seem to keep his hands off of her.

Or, rather, his gloves.

I wonder... she thought, then looked up, and blinked in confusion. Where had those trees come from? And the water hazard was now a pond. And just over Jareth's shoulder was a rather familiar looking bench, with a small stone monolith just beyond it. All that was missing was a shaggy sheepdog and ...a white barn owl?

"You watched me in the park, practicing, didn't you?" she said, a little dazed. Why hadn't she remembered? She walked over to the bench where Merlin had lain so many times and looked up at the stone pillar, where a white owl had sometimes perched during her evening "rehearsals." She'd never thought much of it, but then, she hadn't had any reason at the time to be wary of owls.

"Yes," he said, quietly, behind her. "You were such an odd little thing. So serious and dramatic. I liked you immediately. Besides, it had been a rather long time since a childless mortal had called for the Goblin King. Such a pity you had a baby brother. I might never had had to do anything more than perch on that pillar and laugh at a lonely little mortal girl in a cheap costume."

She spun around to face him, bristling with indignation and embarrassment. She could feel her cheeks flaming. She hadn't realized until he'd spoken that she'd actually asked a question. Now she'd wasted her first question for an answer that teased her and revealed almost nothing.

"That's not what I meant to ask," she said.

"What's said is said," he taunted her, looking rather like his old self again. She half expected his hair to grow several feet and a black cape to swirl magically around his shoulders.

"Cheater," she said.

"When it suits me. Now let's see... I believe I get a wish now," he said it almost impishly, which immediately put her on her guard. She had a terrible feeling about this.

"The first one," he said soothingly, "is always the hardest."

She waited.

"I wish," he said, then paused. "Oh, I **do** like being able to say that phrase for myself for once."

"Get on with it," she said.

"Nervous, Sarah? I promise it won't hurt. Now lets see... oh, yes..." He tapped his forefinger on his chin. "I wish that you would hop on one foot, flap your arms and cluck like a chicken."

"What?!" she exclaimed.

"It's not your turn," he admonished. "All questions will have to wait until the next round." He cocked his head to one side and waited. "Well?"

"I'm not sure I heard you correctly," she said, from between clenched teeth. Oh, this was his game all right. Why had she been worried that he might try to take advantage of her, when what he clearly wanted to do was humiliate her? And the worst part was, if she didn't do it, she forfeited the game and he could take Toby. She muttered several very unladylike comments under her breath.

"I wish," he repeated, stepping closer and giving her an up close view of his smug expression—one that said all too clearly that he knew she'd heard him, but he was enjoying this too much not to rub it in her face. "I wish that you would hop on one foot, flap your arms and cluck like a chicken."

"That's not a wish," she said.

"Oh yes, it is. I've been made to do all kinds of ignoble things as the result of mortal wishes, including wearing eye makeup and dancing about in tights that would emasculate a mortal man. Now, will you grant my wish as I did yours? Or will you forfeit?"

With as much dignity as she could muster, Sarah picked up her right foot, flapped her arms and clucked.

"I'm not convinced, Sarah. Your clucking is rather half hearted."

She closed her eyes and imagined a theater full of small grinning children, and clucked while they giggled in her head. She only stopped when she realized that she wasn't picturing children at all, but an auditorium full of goblins.

Jareth had the audacity to applaud. "Much better," he said. "And here's an answer I'll give you for free, love. Honestly, I just wanted to see if you'd do it. Congratulations. Perhaps you'll give a little more thought to your next question, and I'll give a little more thought to my next wish. I won't be so generous from now on."

She almost hated him then. Except... except that his eyes were so serious. And he wasn't smiling now. In fact, if anything, he looked like someone hungry for a challenge.

She vowed that she wouldn't disappoint him. Even if he did make her cluck like a chicken.

"My turn," she said, as sweetly as she could manage. He nodded in acknowledgment, folded his arms, and waited. He looked so handsome, standing there in the moonlight. His clothes blended with the shadows, leaving the gleam of his gray silk shirt, the pale marble of his skin, and the glittering silver blonde hair kissed with light.

He should have looked human, she thought. He should have looked like just an ordinary man with pale hair, in expensive clothing. She frowned. He didn't. Her question was easy.

"What are you, exactly?"

"Would you rather I showed you, or told you?" he asked.

"Why not show _and_ tell," she countered. He smirked.

"Very well, then. If you insist." For one heartbeat, nothing changed, and then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, one breath and the next, one nearly imperceptible blink of an eye, he _changed_.

Gone were the human clothes, the human hair cut. Nor was he as she remembered him, though. His boots were quite obviously goblin made, for she'd never seen leather quite like that in her world before. His black breeches were some softer leather that molded to his thighs, but wasn't quite as tight or revealing as what he'd worn during her time in the Labyrinth. The white shirt was simpler, without frills, and unlaced, leaving a long thin vee of marble skin exposed from the pale column of his throat, down his sternum, where his familiar crescent shaped pendant lay, with a glimpse of a tightly muscled abdomen before the shirt met at a point just beneath his belt. There was a grinning goblin face with ruby eyes there, almost taunting her to look below. He wore a dark red leather jacket that reminded her of the one she'd seen him in before, with a wide standing collar, and long tails, and wide cuffs that fell over his black gloved hands. His face was without makeup, or glitter, but his eyes had taken on more of a slant, like a cat; and his eyebrows flared high, like an owls wings. His hair was mostly short, but wild, as it had been before, spiking up at odd angles, with two longer locks of hair that fell over his ears and down against his jacket. His ears, she noticed, were the tiniest bit pointed, and he wore a black metal ring through one of them.

He was the old Jareth, and the new Jareth. He was regal, and dangerous looking, and when he moved toward her, he had the grace of a large cat stalking its prey. She shivered.

"Do I frighten you?" he asked curiously, head tilted, eyes narrowed. Sarah licked her suddenly dry lips.

"No," she said, and was startled by a bright red light emanating from her hand. The crystal. She'd almost forgotten she was holding it. He chuckled.

"Be thankful we're not judging you on honesty," he said.

"You still haven't told me," she said, trying to steer the conversation back where it belonged.

"The answer is fairly simple, Sarah-pet," he said. "As you can see, I'm a man."

"That's not a whole answer, and you know it." She fought to stay still as he stepped closer to her.

"No?" He paused, as if considering, his mismatched eyes intent on her face. "I'm the King of the Goblins, Sarah. I'm nearly four thousand years old, and more powerful than you could ever dream. I'm what some mortals have called 'faerie' or 'sidhe' or 'jinn' through the centuries, and what some have called 'gods.' I'm all these things and none of them, precisely—although, the Celts were probably the closest." He paused, and his eyes grew distant, staring at the trees or the stars, and his voice took on a strange quality. "I am immortal, but still among the youngest of my kind. I am of your world, but not in it. Beside it, or beneath it, perhaps. I am generous to those I like, and cruel to my enemies. I am, as much as I can be, a benevolent ruler over my kingdom, where I am very much-," he broke off abruptly and blinked, his eyes focusing again on her as if he had caught himself about to reveal too much.

"Very much...," she prompted, holding up the crystal which had remained clear.

"Alone," he said, his voice so low it was almost lost in the quiet of the night. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, and Sarah felt as if in that one word he'd turned her world and her perception of him upside down. When, in all her time in the Labyrinth, had she encountered another creature quite like him? Or even a human like herself? Why hadn't it crossed her mind then how odd that was, or how lonely that must be? Surrounded by goblins and all the strange inhabitants of the Labyrinth, Jareth was like an adult in a room full of children.

"I'm sorry," she said.

His voice dripped cold arrogance when he responded, "I do not require your pity."

"It's not pity," she said, her voice equally as cold. Damn, he could get her back up in less time than it took for him to change clothes. The man was infuriating.

"Then what is it, Sarah?" He demanded, coming very close, until she could feel the heat coming off of his body, and smell the scent of leather and sandalwood that clung to him. "I'm curious. What could make you feel sorry for someone like me?"

"Sympathy," she said, meeting his intense gaze and refusing to back down. "You're not the only one who has ever felt alone." He didn't respond, and she watched his mismatched eyes go from cold to shuttered.

"You, little girl," he said, his voice a sinister whisper. Involuntarily she backed up and he followed, crowding her with his body until she was pressed against the cold stone column. Rock, she thought, meet hard place. "You," he said, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at her, "had your baby brother to keep you company. And while your stepmother is no prize, neither is your father a monster. You have friends," he sneered the word. "You know nothing of what loneliness is, of what it can do to destroy even the most powerful of men, or how it can make you crave someone so desperately..." His voice had roughened, his eyes held hers captive. He frightened her, but she refused to show him that. She clenched her jaw and dared him silently to go on.

He growled in frustration, and she watched, fascinated, as his expression went blank.

"I wish for you to show me your home, and every room in it," he said without prelude. She blinked. Remembered, then, that she had to breathe. His face remained impassive, waiting. The wind caressed his spider silk hair. He frightened her, yes, but she would not let him win this game. There was just one little problem. She would grant his wish, but...

"We'll need a car," she said, feeling somewhat dizzy again. "I'm afraid I left mine back at the party, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a couple of states away from here. And home is—"

"Just up the street," he said, stepping back, and she saw that they were no longer in the park, but standing on the corner of a sidewalk, only a block from her apartment. And it was snowing.

Which made sense, she supposed, since they were about two thousand miles northwest of her old hometown, and the weather there had been very mild for late December. Sarah hugged her arms around her and bounced a little, and wondered where she could find a coat.

Remembering, then, she had one: a block away, and up ten floors, hanging on the coat rack inside of her front door. Focusing on that, rather than on the man beside her, she started walking.

"You should have just popped us into the lobby," she complained, her teeth chattering. It was ridiculously unfair that she was freezing her ass off in her evening dress, while he was wearing a coat and gloves and looking like he couldn't even feel the cold anyway. She wanted to kick him, but her toes were getting numb in her thin shoes.

"I'm afraid, Sarah, that that's not possible," he said, sounding miffed. "You see, when you recited the lines from your silly book, you removed any power I might have had where you're concerned. Including my ability to 'pop into your lobby.' I cannot watch you, except from a distance, cannot approach without your permission, and cannot take you anywhere against your will."

"And yet you keep whisking me around the country," she said sarcastically. "And you approached me tonight."

"With your permission," he reminded her. "And that invitation has allowed me to bend a few rules that I could not have, otherwise."

"You're telling me that by winning I inflicted some Faerie version of a restraining order," she said, trying not to make it sound like a question, and failing. He only shot her a withering glance.

"You could say that," he said, but declined any further answer.


	7. Six

There were some New Years revelers coming out of the door to the lobby as they approached. Which was lucky, since Sarah's keys were in her purse back at the party. Luckily, she had a spare to her apartment. She led him through the lobby, past the mailboxes and the round red upholstered settee in the middle of the room, to the elevator bank. He looked around at everything as they passed, with that curious tilt to his head, flicking his gaze back and forth from the room to her.

She did her best to ignore him. As soon as they were on the elevator, she bent down and one handed (the other still clutching the crystal) started to unbuckle her shoes. Her toes were half frozen, and the thin soles had long ago stopped being comfortable. It distracted her a little from the mild claustrophobia she always suffered in elevators. When it came to a stop with a lurch, and the young couple that had gotten on with them went out, she breathed deep, trying to keep the panic at bay.

_How could someone so bad smell so good?_ she thought, her numb fingers fumbling with the tiny catch, and trying not to think about how uncomfortable she was trapped in such a small space. Especially when she had to share that space with _him._ Suddenly she felt his gloved hand touch her arm and pull her upright, and she watched in amazement as he knelt down in front of her.

"Allow me," he said, and cupped her shoe in one hand, while he deftly flicked the buckle open with the other. She held onto the railing at her back for support and tried to breathe properly. His fingers were warm, even through the gloves, and all of a sudden she wasn't cold at all. He pulled her shoe off gently and set it aside, his fingers massaging her foot through her silk stockings until the blood had returned to her toes in a tingling rush. Then he reached for the other one.

"For the record, Sarah," he said, his head down so she couldn't see his face, his voice low and rough, "I kneel for no one." His fingers trailed over the smooth silk, and he eased the second catch open, slipping the shoe off, then palming her foot and kneading the sore muscles. Sarah wondered how she was standing considering that her legs had become spaghetti.

The sound of someone moaning softly brought her back to attention, only to realize that she was the one making the noise. He looked up, finally, and while his face betrayed nothing, there was something feral and predatory in his eyes that made her choke back another moan. In all her life, with all the relationships she'd tried at (and failed), no man had ever looked at her like that. He _wanted_ her.

A tiny part of her exulted with that knowledge.

Someone coughed. This time, it wasn't her. She turned to look at the doors and realized that they'd gone all the way back down to the lobby, and a man and a woman, with a small child peeping around the woman's legs, were standing in the elevator door, holding it open.

"Er...," the man said, coughing again and looking terribly amused. "Is this elevator out of service?" The woman was staring at Jareth with a mixture of awe and curiosity flitting over her face. The child merely looked at him and smiled broadly, as if seeing an old friend again.

"Oh," Sarah said, wondering if it was possible to spontaneously combust from embarrassment, "no. We were just.. um..." She glanced at Jareth, who unfolded himself from the floor, and handed her her shoes. His grin was knowing and smug, and she felt herself flush now in anger. He'd embarrassed her on purpose, she thought, and as she thought it he silently chuckled. She turned away from him and pressed the button for her floor. "We were just on our way up."

"Something was on it's way up," the man said, teasingly, and put his arm around his wife. She smiled up at him, and Sarah's heart lurched at the love between them. That, she thought, was what she wanted. She wanted a man who would look at her like that, and love her like that. Definitely _not_ a man who would tease her in a public elevator for the sole purpose of amusing himself and embarrassing her.

He leaned close and whispered in her ear, "Still frightened of small spaces?" he asked, startling her.

The little girl peered around her father's leg and looked up at Jareth. "Hi," she said, in a lisping voice.

"Hello," Jareth said, smiling at her warmly. Sarah wanted to slap him. Or pick the little girl up and hold her as far from Jareth as possible.

"You're doing it wrong," the little girl said, and Sarah had the pleasure of seeing Jareth almost choke.

"Pardon me?" he said.

"You're the Prince. You're s'posed to put Cinderella's shoe ON her, not take it off," she said, with the emphasis of an expert on the subject. Sarah tried very hard not to snort.

"Oh," Jareth said, regaining his composure and smiling again. "I didn't realize. No wonder she doesn't like me."

"No wonder," the little girl repeated, rolling her eyes in exasperation. She looked at Sarah and said, in a perfect imitation of a grown woman, " _Men!"_ This time, Sarah did laugh. The little girl's parents chuckled and looked embarrassed, but fond of their precocious daughter. Jareth just frowned.

The door chimed, and Sarah waved goodbye to the girl. She didn't bother to wait for His Majesty. After all, this was _his_ wish.

She hadn't been this furious with someone since the last time her stepmother had ticked her off, and it felt _good_ , she thought. There were times, at work, when the theater seemed to be falling down around her ears, and her actors were freaking out or throwing tantrums, or the sets were collapsing, or the mouse had escaped down someone's cleavage and someone else was trying to fish it out, that she felt stopped up, bottled. Her emotions buried so far down that she was like the calm eye of a hurricane, with all that pent up force swirling around her but not quite touching.

But this, this raging anger, felt incredibly good.

She marched down the hall, and pounded her fist against a door. Someone yelped inside and she heard footsteps coming toward the door. She banged again. Damn that felt good. "Jimmy, I need my key," she said loudly.

"Sarah?" the voice was a bit muffled, and the door cracked open, held tethered by a chain lock. "What the hell? You're not due back for a week." A brown eye peered out at her, blearily. "Whoa, nice dress."

"Jimmy, I need my key. I'm cold, my feet hurt, and stop ogling my breasts and open the damn door."

"Are you drunk?" Jimmy said.

"I'm pissed," she said.

"But you never drink," Jimmy said, confusion evident in his voice. He shut the door and she heard the chain disengage. When it opened again it revealed a college age boy, wearing ragged jeans and a baggy Korn T-shirt, with short, spiky black hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in a week. His eyes were red rimmed, and Sarah noticed a smudge of Wicked Red lipstick beneath his gauged out ear.

"I'm not drunk," she said, suddenly weary. "Just give me my key and I'll let you get back to whomever you were celebrating with."

"Sure," he said. "Just a second." And he wandered back down the hall, absently zipping his pants up as he went.

"You trust _that_ with the key to your home?" Jareth asked, from just behind her.

"Appearances," she said, without turning, "can be deceiving."

There was a thud from somewhere down the hall, some giggling, and a few swear words, then Jimmy came limping back to the door. "Here you go, boss." He noticed Jareth, gave him a once over, then grinned. "Cool hair," he said, then turned back to Sarah, and handed her the spare key to her apartment that she'd given him so he could water her plants and drop off her mail.

She thanked Jimmy and wished him a happy New Year. She slid around Jareth without touching him, and unlocked the door opposite.

Home, she thought happily. Her trip down south had been nice, but she was glad to be home again, for however long Jareth would allow them to stay before he whisked her off to some other location. One thing was for sure, though. She wasn't giving any tours until she was out of her dress and into something that he wouldn't be imagining on his bedroom floor.

She flicked on the living room lights and pointed at the couch. "Sit," she told him. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Remember," he warned, "you only have a half hour."

"We're already here," she said. "You can wait a few minutes to inspect the closets." He muttered something, but slid into her favorite armchair, hooked a leg over the arm and began tapping a rhythm on his thighs. She sighed. It wasn't like he could get into trouble in her living room, she thought, then went down the shorter hallway to her bedroom and firmly locked the door.


	8. Five

She dropped the crystal on the bed where it would be safe, peeled off her gown, and took the band from her hair, pulling out as many pins as she could reach. Her hair tumbled down in thick curls, the results of being pinned up for so long with a lot of styling product. She wondered if she had time to wash it, but decided not. No sense in testing the time limit. She left the stockings on, since they helped keep her legs warm, and pulled on her favorite pair of old jeans. She traded the whalebone corset she'd been wearing for a comfortable, but pretty bra, and then slid into a plain white t-shirt, and threw a green sweater with a V-neck on over it. A glance in the mirror made her pause. She looked pretty, she supposed. Relaxed and casual. No longer a fairy tale princess but just a pretty woman in a flattering pair of jeans that showed off the curves of her hips and thighs and rear, and a green sweater that brought out the green and gold tints in her eyes. Nothing special. Nothing that should have attracted the attention of the Goblin King. And yet...

Her scalp was sore from her hair having been up, but she resisted the urge to brush it. It would only make it worse. She paused and picked up the crystal again and frowned at it.

_Do you want it?_ the memory teased her. _Then forget the baby_. She was forgetting something, she knew it. But what? This was his game, even if he had let her establish some rules. She couldn't forget that, couldn't forget what he'd take from her if she refused to grant his wish. She wanted her answers, but she couldn't help the nagging sensation that she'd forgotten something important when they'd made up the rules.

"I just wanted some answers," she muttered. Surely there was no danger in that? No sooner had the words left her mouth, however, than the crystal in her hands lit up. Startled, she almost dropped it. Was it true? she thought. Had she wanted more from this than just answers? Embarrassed by the truth glowing in her hand, she whispered the first true thing she could think of: "I'm glad he's here." It went dark. With a sigh she tossed it gently and caught it. It was smooth and cool in her hand, a little heavy, and, she suspected, probably more dangerous to her than to him, since he didn't seem to be the one having a problem with telling the truth anymore.

In any case, she was getting tired of holding the crystal all the time. Surely there was some way... She rummaged through her things. There was an old sheer scarf in her top dresser drawer, and she used it to make a kind of pouch for the crystal, then threaded the scarf through a belt loop and tied it in place. There, she thought, a hands free lie detector. She padded in her stocking feet to the door and opened it.

Then stifled a shriek. He was leaning against the wall opposite the door, his arms crossed, and a frown slowly dying on his face.

"Don't do that," she said, but he didn't answer. His lazy gaze drifted over her long tangled hair, and slightly smudged eye makeup, down over the green sweater, which might as well have been made of cellophane, the way his eyes seemed to peer through it. She kept her hands fisted at her sides as his eyes lingered over the flat plane of her stomach and then down farther, until finally he reached her toes.

The return trip was even slower, but it gave her time to think. He liked the way she looked. She knew hunger when she saw it, and his face was definitely hungry. He was even arrogant about it, studying her as if she were his prey, just waiting for him to swoop down and devour her. Again, she felt that tug in the back of her mind. _You're forgetting something,_ she thought. _Be careful._

But she was still mad about the scene in the elevator. Mad enough so that when he met her eyes again she did her best to shoot daggers with them. "Finished?"

"Not yet," he said.

"Take your time," she said, and turned on her heel and swept down the hall to the kitchen, deliberately swaying her hips a little while she walked.

His chuckle was dark and sexy, and she could have sworn she heard him say, "Forever wouldn't be long enough."

_Ha_ , she thought, and opened her fridge to see what was still edible after almost a week away. Jimmy had clearly helped himself, she noted, since there was an empty jug of milk cooling itself in the door rack. She tossed it in the trash without looking. The bread was down to the heels, which she hated, but her stomach was complaining about not getting any cake earlier, and there wasn't much else. Luckily peanut butter didn't go bad, and Jimmy was allergic to peanuts.

"I believe you owe me a tour," Jareth said. He was leaning against the wall, blocking the doorway into the kitchen. She shrugged and dug a butter knife from the drawer.

"You wished to see my home. This is it. Feel free to poke around. But I don't remember anything in your wish about giving you a tour," she was surprised at how calm she was responding. He growled low in his throat. It was a very Not-Human sound, but perversely, it didn't frighten her. She wondered, absently, if she rubbed his ears if he'd purr. Then she pushed that thought as far from her mind as she could. _Don't be stupid, Sarah,_ she admonished herself, taking her frustrations out on the bread. _This is a game, and he's very good at games. You can't trust him._

Since he was blocking the way out, she leaned back against the counter and took a bite of her sandwich. If he wanted to see her home, he was welcome to it. He smirked, then came further into the kitchen. She swallowed convulsively. Her kitchen really wasn't that big, and he seemed to fill what was left of it with the force of his presence, which, in turn, made the claustrophobia kick in. He approached her fridge and began lazily studying the magnets and things stuck to it.

She wasn't entirely sure what to make of him. Like some kind of otherworldly detective, he opened every cabinet and drawer. Some of them he shut, some of them he touched the things inside with the tips of his gloved fingers. She watched, mutely fascinated by the way he went over everything, his eyes not missing a thing.

When he'd finished the kitchen, he moved—to her vast relief—to the dining area, then the living room. His gloves trailed over the back of her sofa, and suddenly all she could think about was the way they'd felt on her feet, gentle and firm. He slid his hand over the back of her armchair, and she imagined it was her back he was touching. She felt herself grow warmer, and she threw the rest of the sandwich in the garbage, and poured a tall glass of cold water which she drank as if she were dying. He examined every DVD on her storage shelf, every CD beside the stereo. He ran one finger over the spine of every book on the three tall bookshelves that dominated one wall of the room, and she had to pour herself another glass.

He studied the photos hanging on her wall with the intensity of an art student. He stroked the soft throw she'd tossed over the arm of the couch. It was getting really hot in the kitchen, she thought, absently. And then he went into her office.

_Don't watch,_ she told herself. _There's nothing in there he can hurt,_ she thought. Resolutely, she turned and went back into her bedroom where she wouldn't be so tempted to peek around the door and watch him fondling her computer or whatever it was he was doing. In the bathroom, Sarah splashed cold water on her face and washed the mascara rings from around her eyes.

What had happened? She wondered. One minute she'd been... not exactly enjoying the party... but at least things had been normal there. One birthday wish later and her world was upside down, there was a Goblin King wandering around her apartment, and her luggage and purse were five time zones away. She was suddenly tired.

"Interesting reading material," Jareth said, when she came out of the bathroom and found him standing beside her bed.

"That's none of your business," she said, and snatched her well read copy of _The Immortal Highlander_ out of his hands. So she had a slight addiction to romance novels. Especially romance novels that were a little smutty. And had really hot Faerie princes in them. She was an adult. She was allowed. She opened a cabinet to reveal her small library of romance novels, and stuffed it inside before he could get a good look at the contents—although from the smirk hovering around those expressive lips, she had a feeling he had a good enough idea of them anyway.

He turned smugly away and began going over her bedroom with the same meticulous care. He only paused at the window to frown thoughtfully out, as if looking for something. Then he turned his back to the window and studied her room again. It made her feel oddly violated.

When he moved, she didn't see it. He was suddenly in front of her where she was leaning against the jamb to the bathroom. And she backed up before she realized what she was doing. He followed her into the small space, trapping her with her back to the tub while he went over the things around the sink.

"You said you wanted to see every room," she said, angry. Trying not to panic at being trapped. "Not touch everything in them."

"There's all kinds of ways to see things, Sarah," he said, his voice a husky murmur. "You should know better than most that things aren't always what they seem." He turned to her, crowding her against the wall. She should have panicked then, but she didn't. His eyes held hers, hypnotizing her with their intensity. "Sometimes," he said, "one must touch something to truly understand it." He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone and she felt the blood rush back into her face again. His touch seared her even through the leather.

"Why do you wear gloves?" she asked, mesmerized. He shrugged, and his voice remained low and lulling when he spoke.

"Many reasons. They're terribly comfortable. I think in the future everyone will wear them," he said, and she caught the teasing glint in his eye. It made her smile a little, and she was pleased when his gaze dropped to her lips. "Magic requires concentration," he said, shifting his weight so that she could feel him standing so near that only a whisper of air was between their bodies. This close the scent of him made her mouth water, and she had the strangest impulse to lean forward into the heat that was coming from his body, rub against him, and purr.

"My sense of touch is rather," he hesitated, searching for a word, "...acute. Sometimes this makes magic easier to handle. Sometimes more difficult. The gloves help to minimize distractions." His fingers were brushing over her face like moth wings, the leather so soft and his touch so fleeting that her eyes fluttered closed. She felt drugged and languid, with only the wall at her back to support her and keep her from falling against him.

She felt his breath fan over her face, and knew that he'd ducked his head closer to hers. _Oh, god_ , she thought, _he's going to kiss me_. This gorgeous, wicked, infuriating creature was going to kiss her, and she still wasn't sure if she wanted him to or not. Her body was all for it, but a little voice in the back of her mind whispered _beware._ He'd seduced her before to distract her from what she wanted. Whether the peach dream had been real or not, he'd still known how to tempt her romantic, girlish heart. He knew the kind of promises that would make a girl lose her reason and forget everything but him.

_Still_ , she thought, _one kiss couldn't hurt, could it?_ His fingers brushed her hair back behind her ear, and she realized that she couldn't feel leather, only his warm fingertips hovering over her skin. He caught her jaw in one bare hand and tipped her face up to his, and she couldn't help it. Her head fell back even as her body tensed, waiting. _Oh, please,_ she thought, _it's been so long since someone wanted me._

"Sarah," he breathed against her lips, so close but not touching. "Lovely Sarah." Her nails dug into the palms of her hands as she fought to keep them by her sides. He cupped her face, and she thought she heard him groan softly. "I wish," he said, "that you would kiss me."

Her eyes flew open. He was so close, his sensual mouth curved into a smile that was oh so sexy and smug. From beneath his dark lashes his eyes glittered impishly.

He'd trapped her again, physically, this time. He wouldn't give her what she wanted. Instead he had tricked her into wanting to give _him_ exactly what _he_ wanted: her submission. She had no choice, either. Either she kissed him, or she lost Toby, and that wasn't going to happen. He parted his lips slightly, as if breathless with anticipation, but she knew him better.

Her nails bit into her palms hard enough to draw blood. He wanted to play, she thought furiously. Fine. Two could play his game.

She purred, and smiled as seductively as she knew how (and considering all those acting classes she'd aced, she knew exactly the kind of smile that would melt a man), then unclenched her hands and slid them up over his shoulders, trying not to feel how buttery supple his leather jacket was, and pressed herself against him. For a moment, she let her lips hover over his, until she heard him growl softly, then she brushed her lips against his once, twice, three times, more intimately each time. His gloved hand slid around to fist in her hair, and she molded herself against his lean hard body, and slid her tongue into his mouth.

She hadn't counted on how good he tasted. _Oh, he's like chocolate_ , she thought hazily, deepening her kiss and lapping at him hungrily. His tongue was warm and sleek, and he was utterly delicious. With another growl he pulled her even closer, until she could feel how much he wanted her through all their layers of clothing. It startled and pleased her to know that she had such an effect on him.

Her heart was hammering in her ears as she nipped his bottom lip, then licked at the corner of his mouth delicately. She could hear him breathing raggedly as she slid her lips down to trail along his jaw, and she could feel his pulse pounding as fast as hers beneath the pale skin of his throat. Her head was spinning, and her heart sounded like it was going to...

She froze.

That wasn't her heart. Someone was knocking on the door.

With a mental sigh of relief, she forced herself to let him go, and push him away. A little payback wouldn't hurt, she thought. Much.

As it was, her entire body was taut with lust, and she could feel the heat between her legs insisting that she go back and climb him like a fireman's pole.

Especially when she glanced at him and saw his eyes dark and mirroring her own desire, and his long fingered hand reaching for her, the glove forgotten on the floor.

_Oh no, Sarah_ , she thought. _You are not letting him win that easily. Go answer the door and leave His Majesty twitching in his britches._ She couldn't help the self satisfied sway of her hips when she walked away from him this time.


	9. Four

"Sarah," Jimmy said, when she opened the door. Then he paused and studied her kiss-bruised lips and mussed hair with amusement. "Ah, sorry to interrupt," he said cheerfully, and clearly enjoying this immensely, "but Mike called. I told him you were back and he said you should swing by the theater and check out the new stage. He finished it up this afternoon."

"I told him not to work on holidays," she said, frowning.

"Yeah, but you know how he is. You have to pry him out of that place with a crowbar. And technically, this afternoon wasn't a holiday. You have to nail him down to the letter," They both laughed, Sarah thanked him, and closed the door. She pressed her forehead to the cool surface. Slowly, her hormones subsided to a petulant grumble. Her emotions, however, were roiling inside of her, making her painfully aware of how badly she wanted him.

It was confusing, and she wanted a minute to gain some perspective before facing him again.

When she'd wished Toby away, she'd been on the brink of womanhood, still immature in many ways, but her time in the Labyrinth had helped her grow up. Initially, she'd found the Goblin King to be villainously handsome, and a little scary; though he had seemed easy enough to defeat, in the beginning. But something had changed, after the peach. Some important shift had occurred, and he'd tried, instead of throwing obstacles in her path, to seduce her around to his side. At fourteen she'd barely understood that it was seduction, all she'd seen was an evil villain that must be vanquished, but who drew her to him with his wicked smile.

It wasn't until later, with a few dating experiences under her belt that she'd begun to understand that no fumblings in a dark car, no whispered lines at a high school dance, no smooth pick up tricks in college, could ever begin to compare to him. Even if all she'd ever had was a single dance that might have just been a dream, and a proposal that was more than likely a desperate last ploy to steal her brother. It was only a mere taste of that fairy tale she'd always dreamed of. Still, it was enough of a taste that, at some point, she'd put those hollow relationships away, like her childhood toys, and if she did decide to try again, it was in the spirit of nostalgia: trying to recapture something she'd never really had.

Yet, here he was again, attempting once more to seduce her, in order to distract her from her goal. Only now she was old enough to recognize it and, more dangerously, to respond to it. Even though he made her furious, even though he scared her on some level she couldn't even begin to fathom, deep down, some part of her desperately wanted his desire for her to be real. She wanted to be Beauty to his Beast, and find the man inside, but she suspected that he was the sort of Beast who would never lose his wilder tendencies. Even though she'd grown up, and tried to swear off the fairy tales, some part of her wanted him to want her, and not just for tonight, but for forever—even if her forever, for him, wasn't very long at all. After all, her life was a mere bat of an eyelash compared to four thousand years.

However, it seemed as if she did affect him, on some level at least. She knew, from acting, that passion is hard to fake. To an audience it might be convincing, but an actor always knows. And he wasn't dissembling. He wanted her. Whether it was merely a fleeting response, brought on by too little contact with a female, or whether it was really her that mattered, she didn't know.

Over and over again, however, she kept coming back to one question, and she was still angry enough at his manipulation of her to be able to ask it. She pushed herself firmly away from the door and made her way back down the hall to the living room, where she found him lounging in her armchair again, playing with something.

She came up to him and took it from him. He didn't protest. It was a bookend carved in the shape of a gnarled old dwarf, with a worried expression.

"Hoggle," she said, touching the carving with fondness. An odd expression flickered across Jareth's face, but he didn't say anything, only waited.

_He wants me to ask about Hoggle,_ the thought came to her and she knew it was true. But that wasn't what she wanted to know, right now. Let him have another wish, and she'd get another question, but she had to ask this one now, while she was still angry and on guard. She wouldn't be manipulated this time, but she would have to word this one very, very carefully.

"When I ate your peach," she said, turning the carving over in her hands, thoughtfully, "I had a dream, or what I thought was a dream. What was my dream about?" She glanced at him.

Something about his eyes said he was surprised, but his face was impassive.

_He might not know_ , that little voice in the back of her mind said. _Yes, but if he doesn't, then I'll know it wasn't real._ She ran her fingers over Hoggle's lumpy nose, and waited.

He didn't speak. Just got up from the chair and crossed to one of the windows overlooking the street. She saw the stillness of his back, the pale curve of one high cheekbone, the starlight glitter of his hair, and came around to stand at the second window, far enough away that he couldn't touch her without moving, but close enough to study his profile.

Below, the traffic moved, and people scurried about their ordinary lives, going to parties or stumbling drunkenly home. A door down the street opened and a crowd of college students staggered out, singing.

"There was a ball," he said, his voice matching the low growl of the traffic. "A masquerade full of men and women in grotesquely beautiful masks. The room was iridescent and white and felt as though it was floating. Candelabras draped in pearls dripped perfumed wax. The music was soft, light, at first, like it was playing in a music box."

She felt a little dizzy again, listening.

"You wore a gown meant for a princess, all silver white and chastely beautiful. Your hair was swept high and sparkled with jewels. You were younger than everyone there, and there was a look in your eyes that said you knew it. You were searching for something, but the peach made you forget what that something was. Fans fluttered, and people moved and shifted and teased in ways you were only just beginning to understand. And I moved through them, hunting you, letting you think you were hunting me."

His voice had been dispassionate, dry. Recounting the details of the dream she couldn't forget as if it were a murder, and he was dispensing with the facts as quickly as he could and trying not to relive those moments. Now, though, it took on an indefinable quality that hinted at a curious mix of bitterness and bewilderment.

"I watched you move among them, like a dove, or a deer; prey lost among predators. But you never betrayed the fear I could smell on you. You pushed past them as if they were annoyances. Searching, always searching. The peach only made you forget what you were looking for, but that sense of urgency was still with you. I used your dreams to distract you."

He turned then, but moved no closer, and she studied the way the light fell over the planes of his face and glittered in the dark pupil of his right eye.

"When I took you in my arms, to dance, it was to make you forget the child. When I sang it was to make you listen only to me. When I whirled you through the dancers it was to make you dizzy with dreams. To show you what I could offer you, if you would only do what you were supposed to do. But you never do what's expected, do you?"

"No," she said softly. "Not if I can help it."

"The clock was a mistake," he said, his voice dipping lower, until shivers were running over her skin and the fine hair on the back of her neck was taut with anticipation. "I was smugly secure of my success. After all, no woman had ever resisted before."

Now it was her hackles rising, but she smoothed them down as best she could. Of course there'd been women he'd danced with before her. Of course there'd been other women who must have traveled the Labyrinth in search of their children. There was the book, wasn't there? Still, it rankled.

"I should not have included it. When it reminded you of the time, you wrenched away, pushed through the crowd and ran. It was not the first time you had won a battle, but it was the first time you'd bruised my pride in the process. It was also the first time I saw you as a worthy adversary. You won my respect then, even if you didn't know it. Even though I knew, when you woke, you would forget the child all over again, and were still doomed to failure."

What he didn't know, and she decided then and there that she wouldn't tell him, ever, was that she hadn't remembered Toby when the clock struck twelve at all. Lost in a dream, dressed like a princess, and in the arms of a prince, surrounded by the curious and unwelcome stares of beautiful courtiers, she'd thought she must be Cinderella. It was the only thing that had made sense at the time. When the clock had struck twelve, she'd remembered that she was supposed to leave the ball at midnight, or she'd turn back into a peasant before all of the beautiful people. That was what had motivated her to run, and when she'd found herself trapped with no way out, what had caused her to break the bubble to escape.

Only to wake up a peasant again, anyway, tossed aside like so much trash, in a land full of discarded things.

"The junk yard was another distraction, wasn't it?" she asked.

"That, little girl," he said, stepping closer, now, out of the light and into the shadow, which made him seem taller, and more seductively menacing, "is a second question, and not part of my answer. So allow me to decline it, and instead make my next wish." His hand, once more gloved, slid around her waist and the other took the bookend from her and placed it on the windowsill, before capturing her other hand gently. In a smooth motion, he stepped and she went with him automatically, her feet eager to dance with him, even while her mind was already protesting. She put her free hand to his shoulder, intending to push him away, but he spun her quickly, so that she clutched at him instead.

" _There's such a sad love, deep in your eyes_ ," he sang softly, and in her mind she could hear the tinkling notes of her old music box. It was enough to lull her for a moment, enough to make her follow his lead and listen to the soft whisper of their clothes in the quiet apartment, and the low melody he was humming against her ear. Enough for her to shove that annoying little voice to the back of her head where it grumbled that she was letting him seduce her into forgetting, again... but since she couldn't remember right now what she was forgetting, she figured it didn't make that much difference.

Under her hands he moved like a cat, muscles rippling subtly, the leather softer than any she'd ever felt. The gloved hand holding hers was warm and oddly protective. He moved, and she swayed with him, forgetting that she was wearing jeans and in her stocking feet, and dancing in a quiet, mostly dark apartment. He shifted her a little, when he spun her, so she was pressed against him, and his steps slowed, his voice a soft croon beside her ear, his breath brushing her skin a moment before he skimmed his lips over the corner of her jaw. Her heart began racing as he trailed soft kisses over her pulse, and then around the delicate shell of her ear. He paused to nip at her earlobe, humming the last bar of the song.

"Sarah," he whispered.

"Mmmm?" the pudding in his arms said.

"I wish you would take me to your theater," he said, then added with emphasis, "and give me a full tour."

The pudding solidified.

"You," she said, "are a despicable creature."

He laughed darkly. "Only when I want to be," he said, and nipped her earlobe again. "And at this moment, I really want to be." She never saw it coming. One moment his mouth was pissing her off in her ear, and the next he'd claimed hers with it in a deep and punishing kiss that promised all manner of dark and sinful pleasures. This was the way she'd always imagined he would kiss, but she'd never imagined that her response to it would be so emphatic.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kneaded the muscles there with her fingertips. Her body arched into his, as if trying to pull him down on top of her and she kissed him back with all the longing inside of her. All her life she'd wanted someone to want her like this, and to have it come from him was both a shock and a guilty pleasure, like suddenly discovering that chocolate made you thinner and gave you a better complexion. His sharp teeth teased her lips, his mouth stole her breath, and his hands clutched her to him tightly, as if he would pull her into his body and make her a permanent part of him.

She couldn't breathe from the force of it, and when she finally pulled away it was to drag air into starving lungs. Yet he didn't stop, and his mouth trailed fire down her throat until he reached the hollow at the base, and there he lapped with his tongue, as if she were water and he was the one dying of thirst. Through heavy lids she watched his spider silk hair as he began to kiss lower, but as his head ducked she saw a blue light glimmering in the darkness behind him.

Fuzzily, Sarah wondered what it was, but his hand had slid to the collar of her sweater, pushing it down so he could kiss the soft skin below her collarbone. The light blinked at her, and she shook her head a little to clear it. _Oh,_ she thought, _it's just the clock on the stove_. And then he cupped her breast in one gloved hand and her mind slipped away.

_After all_ , she thought vaguely, _it wasn't like they were on a..._

"OH!" She cried, and pushed him away so hard he actually stumbled back. His eyes were dark, but there was no frustration in them this time. Only approval, which was enough to confuse her momentarily. "You..." she said, panting a little and then trying to regain control of her voice. "You..."

"Despicable creature?" he said, chuckling a little. She growled at him and he laughed again at the kittenish sound. He'd been trying to make her forget she only had a half an hour to grant his wish. And the theater was just far enough away that he might have succeeded.

"I need shoes," she muttered to herself. "You," she said to him, "WILL stay in that chair until I'm ready, or I swear to god I will emasculate you with something sharper than your pants." He laughed again, but subsided back into her armchair with regal grace while she went in search of her boots.


	10. Three

The walk to the theater was just as cold as the walk to her apartment, but this time she had a sweater and a coat, along with her frustrated hormones and smoldering fury to warm her. She kept her hands deep in her pockets, and her face half buried in the scarf she'd tossed on just before she went out the door, and muttered a stream of colorful invectives against capricious faeries and men in general into it. He strolled beside her, not seeming to mind the cold, and turning his face a little into the biting wind and smiling. He looked, she thought, content.

Which made her nervous.

The two blocks went by quickly, and she found herself unlocking the front door to the theater sooner than she'd expected. From the front it was a long, low building, with the theater rising behind it, and a marquee that was currently blank, waiting to advertise their January show as soon as everyone was back from their holidays. The lobby was cold and dark, and smelled faintly of concessions, paint, and sawdust. She gestured him in, then locked the door behind them and unwound her scarf.

This, even more than her apartment, was home, and for the first time since getting dressed for Caitlyn's party, Sarah felt herself begin to really relax. She knew this building inside and out, and in many ways it reminded her of herself: a little shabby, a little romantic, a little unwanted, a little off the beaten path, but full of magic, creativity, laughter, love, and possibilities. She'd taken this job, so far away from school and home, because she'd fallen in love with the building. It called to her in ways those big Broadway stages never could.

"You own this?" Jareth asked, and his voice was low and reverent, and for that she could have kissed him entirely of her own volition.

"No," she said. "I'm just one of the managers." The lobby carpet was a little faded in places, but still comfortable, and her booted feet made no sound at all as she walked. "This is the lobby," she said. "It's next on the list of things to be refurbished. Hopefully we'll have the money in next year's budget."

"What would you change?" he asked, running a gloved hand over the pedestal in the middle of the room, which held an urn full of fading silk flowers. She smiled and looked around.

"Real flowers, for one," she said. "Better lighting, new carpet. Maybe redo the ticket counter and make it look more art deco and less 'That 70's Show.' Definitely redo the bathrooms and concession area." On the far western wall was a set of double doors, which she unlocked. He followed her into an open room with pretty burgundy carpet and cream and gold papered walls. "This is the meeting room. We rent it out for special occasions. Through here," she opened another set of double doors and led him into a reception area, "are the offices. This is Louisa's desk. She's our secretary and handles the phone reservations. The other offices are Kip's and Patty's, they're the ones who own the place." He peered in curiously, but didn't enter, for which she was relieved.

She opened another door. "This office is mine, but I share it with the technical director." It was a small, cramped room, with two desks and two older model computers, and with a new laser printer stuck in the corner. Several bookshelves crammed with scripts took up most of the available wall space. She shut the door before he could go in and touch everything in there, too.

Ignoring his closeness, Sarah led him out into the meeting room to a small door tucked in the far corner. It was barely wide enough to admit one, and led to a tiny, mercifully short, hallway with a hidden bathroom nooked into the corner. The door at the opposite end opened on a small music room, with tiered levels, and a worn looking piano on the floor opposite. Student desks, no doubt donated from some high school that had long since graduated to newer models, were piled in the corner, and folding chairs were clustered on the tiered risers at one end as if their occupants had just gotten up and left. Which they probably had, she thought.

"We use this room for musical rehearsals," she said, leaving him to his own devices for a moment she began folding up the chairs and leaning them against the wall. He watched for a minute, then to her surprise, began to help. They worked in silence for a few minutes, putting away the chairs. She glanced at him and found him glancing at her. He smiled a little, just a slight tilt to the corner of his lips, and, not knowing how to handle the strange emotion that caused, she turned away and led him back though the tiny hall, across the meeting room, and back to the lobby.

The eastern wall also had a set of double doors, which she unlocked with a separate key. "This is the art gallery," she said, descending the set of three steps from the lobby level to the main gallery level. There was a wheelchair ramp that ran along the wall, and he followed that, studying the artwork hanging along it one by one. Sarah paused in the middle of the room, next to a cast bronze sculpture and watched him.

He was so otherworldly, she thought. So incongruous to the gritty realist work beside him. He studied every piece like an expert, his gloved hands behind his back, his head tilted a little as he strolled from piece to piece. He circled the room until he came to another small door, tucked into a corner near another set of bathrooms, then turned to her and waited patiently.

"The studio," she said, and unlocked it for him. This room was even colder than the rest of the building, due mainly to the concrete floors and the large plate glass windows that ringed it. The tables were long and built from a pale golden wood, scarred over the years and coated in a fine layer of clay dust. Easels leaned in a pile against the wall, and two squat kilns occupied a small room in the far corner. Shelves with drying white clay pots took up the opposite wall.

He was eyeing the tables speculatively when she turned back to him. Not sure she wanted to know what he was thinking, she sighed, "Let's go look at the stage."

"As you wish," he said teasingly, and gestured for her to lead.

She relocked the gallery doors after him, and then went to the tiny box office and opened the split door with yet another key. This was the part she didn't like, so she figured it would be best to get it over with quickly, so she could get to the part that she did. The box office was cramped, and stuffed with boxes of playbills, a phone, and a small, empty cash register. Another door opened out of the back of it, and the room inside was blacker than the Goblin King's wardrobe. She groped for a moment, her heart starting to pound with the usual panic, before he came up behind her, reached out a hand and unerringly found the pull cord for the bare lightbulb over her head.

"Thank you," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, and stepped into the tiny space that was crammed with boxes containing lighting gels and sound paraphernalia. A set of steep wooden stairs dominated the closet sized room, and she ascended these with him on her heels, painfully aware of his closeness. There was a door at the top, with no landing, and he crowded her against it, trapping her there, while she fumbled in the shadows for the right key. His gloved fingers brushed her hair away from the side of her throat and she felt the heat of his lips against the skin there.

"I can feel your pulse," he said, his voice rough and low, "Why so skittish in close spaces, Sarah? I don't recall you panicking when you landed in my oubliette." His tongue lapped the skin beneath her ear, and she almost dropped the keys. "Shhh..." he whispered, but it did nothing to soothe the racing beat of her heart.

"Well," she said, faintly, "being trapped in a tunnel with a hundred sharp blades whirling toward you and no way out tends to do things to a person. I had nightmares about that moment for a long time."

He nuzzled the soft place where her throat met her shoulder. "The door opened, didn't it?"

"Yes," she said, trying another key. His hands were on her hips, beginning to skim upwards, edging up under her sweater. The key clicked in the lock. "Just in time," she said, pushing the door open and stepping out of his embrace. She would have sworn that he laughed softly.

There was a switch just inside, which she flipped gratefully, illuminating a long room that was crowded from end to end with costumes and shoes and hats. "Costume closet," she sneezed. This room was always dusty.

A threadbare carpet muffled the sound of their feet on the wooden floor, and they passed eighteenth century costumes and plastic wrapped wedding gowns as she led him through the tiny space. She tried to breathe deep. Usually the cramped spaces in this part of the building made her claustrophobia kick into overdrive, but his presence was distracting enough that she wasn't having time to panic, and for that, she was perversely grateful. There was a tiny wooden door in the wall, which she opened easily into another narrow room that was painted entirely black.

Two long windows took up the far wall. Set beneath them were equally long tables covered in the technical equipment required to run the lights and sound for the theater. A couple of comfortable stools were stashed underneath. Otherwise the room was empty.

"Light and sound booth," she explained. He edged past her and peered out of the windows and into the theater proper. She listened and heard the telltale hum of the lighting system. Mike must have left it on. She flicked a couple of switches on the terminal nearby and watched as little lights blinked on the board.

"Humans," Jareth said, watching her seat herself at the board with amusement. "So inventive. Imagine what your race would have done had you been more inclined toward magic. What does this machine do?"

Sarah smiled. "Magic," she said, and pushed the master slider to full.

The stage came to life.

She hit the preset test button and watched the computer cycle through the cues for the last show, lamps turning on, dimming, lighting up in combinations that made the stage almost dance with color. When it reached the end she punched up the preset for her favorite cue.

Blues bathed the upstage area in a moonlight glow, while two lights with patterned gobo covers gave the illusion of leaves. A gold-gelled lamp cast a downlight center stage, waiting for a performer to fill it. The downstage area was dark, and the black draped wings of the curtains almost disappeared into the shadows.

Jareth watched it all curiously. "Such a pity," he murmured. She smiled up at him, and then surprised herself by reaching out and taking his gloved hand in hers.

"Come on," she said. She led him hurriedly out of the booth, which she didn't bother to lock, through the costume closet and back into the gel room. She opened a hidden door, which led into the main part of the theater, behind the seats, then towed him down the aisle and up onto the stage. She let go of his hand and hit the mark below the downspot, turning her face up into its glow and taking a deep breath.

"You love this place," he said, from the shadows.

"Yes," she said, and spread out her arms. "It's full of magic."

"Technical tricks and cheap costumes aren't precisely magic," he said.

"Anything can be magic," she said, believing it with all her heart, "when viewed in the right light." He was very quiet, and when she looked in his direction the shadows kept her from reading his expression. "Come on, there's still a little bit left of your tour," she said.

 


	11. Two

Stage right led to the green room, which was actually green, and doubled as storage space for furniture props. A moldy red velvet sofa blocked the way into the sewing room nook, which was filled with bolts of cloth and an ancient sewing machine.

Beside the greenroom was a wing space for moving sets on and off, which led to a workroom that spanned the back of the building. If Jareth had looked odd standing next to the art in the gallery, she thought, he looked utterly out of place kicking sawdust off his boots, and examining a table saw with his eyebrows raised nearly vertical.

Stage left was the stage managers station, and the fly system and catwalk access. A small door next to the prop table led into the dressing rooms, which were shabbier than the green room, and held shelves full of wigs and hats and costume racks with empty hangers. He looked at everything with the same sort of mild interest, not touching now, just observing quietly, and Sarah wondered what it was he was looking for here, and why he'd been so interested in seeing it.

She led him back out on stage, leaving him in the blue lights upstage, watching her, while she went downstage to check out the new construction Mike had finished. It was sound. The old stage extension had been slowly rotting underneath, the braces supporting it about to give way, and the old trap door unusable. She found the new trap door set about where the old one had been, behind the under-stage orchestra pit. It was nearly invisible in the wood planking, and opened easily enough. She could still smell the black paint. He'd done a good job. Too bad she'd still have to have a talk with him about working holidays. The man would work himself to death, and find a way around everything she said so he could.

Something was nagging at her. Something to do with Mike. Something to do with her, and Jareth, and all of this. What?

"Your turn," Jareth said, from upstage, his voice taking wings with the acoustics and sounding even more seductive. She didn't even want to contemplate how he'd sound with a microphone.

Still fighting that nagging sensation, she asked the question she'd wanted to ask before, the one that a part of her was dreading the answer to. "Hoggle promised me that he'd always be there, if I needed him. So did Ludo, and Didymus. And they were, at first. Then one day, they stopped coming. What happened to them?"

"You," he said. She wanted to turn and look at him, but somewhere in her heart, he was only telling her what she already knew, so she didn't. She was afraid he'd see the tears gathering in her eyes. So instead she turned to face out at the empty audience, a fitting tribute to the emptiness she'd felt for so long, whenever she thought of her friends.

"How do I explain this, Sarah?" he asked softly. "The purpose of the Labyrinth is to test those who attempt it. The creatures inside that one encounters can help, or hinder. Many of them are...shaped by the person who is being tested. They are made of your dreams, your fears, your imaginary friends, but they also have their own individual personalities. Tell me, didn't most of them feel rather familiar?"

"Yes," she said, thinking of her bookend. She'd known it was more than mere coincidence that it had looked so like Hoggle. And she'd had a stuffed dog she'd dressed like a pirate that was almost Sir Didymus's twin. Then there was the doll her mother had sent her, of the evil faerie king, with the spiky blonde hair and tight pants. Had he just conjured it all up from her dreams? From her room? Had even her friends been an illusion?

"They were real," he said, reassuringly. "It would take too long to explain how the magic works, but suffice it to say they were real, and still exist as part of the Labyrinth's many denizens." She took a deep breath.

"But they stopped coming," she said.

"You stopped believing," he said. "Perhaps you called, but you doubted. Or maybe you started feeling too old for such childish nonsense. Or maybe you started to think it was just another dream. In the end, Sarah, you stopped believing, and the magic that had brought them to you died with your belief."

He was quiet then, and so still she might have been alone.

"If it will make you happy, know that they are happy, and healthy, and all three of them repaired my bloody bridge. Although the price they charged was ridiculously high, considering that they helped destroy it," he sounded petulant.

She couldn't help but laugh at that. Perhaps Hoggle had found his courage after all.

"My turn," he said. She braced herself.

"Since I've already had a personal performance of your favorite monologue, which cost me more than you can possibly imagine, we'll go with something less dangerous. I wish you would play for me your least favorite monologue," he said.

"That's an odd wish," she said, turning now to look at him. He was standing with his back to the black wall, his arms crossed over his chest, one booted foot crossed over the other, waiting.

"Perhaps. Will you grant it?"

"I haven't acted in a long time," she said.

"I have every confidence in your abilities," he said dryly. She turned away, to think. Her least favorite scene? She racked her brain, mentally reviewing every play she'd ever produced, directed, performed, or swept the stage for, every movie she'd ever watched, every student competition she'd ever gritted her teeth through judging. There were a lot of terrible performances in there, but a good actor could have made any of them better. There were some badly written ones in there, but they'd been well performed, so she had no complaints. There wasn't any play she'd ever truly hated, and more than a few that she loved. Choosing a least favorite monologue was going to be hard...

Except, she thought, turning to look at him again, standing there in the false moonlight, with the shadows of the leaves over his inhuman beauty, there was one...

She took a deep breath, as she would before any performance. Stretched a little. Mentally reviewed the lines. This speech she knew very well, although she'd never performed it. She'd seen it done several dozen times, by good and bad actors, and always, always, it had left a sour taste in her mouth.

Sarah put that aside, turned to face her audience of one, and opened her eyes.

" _If we shadows have offended,"_ she began, in a light voice with a hint of amusement, _"think but this, and all is mended./ That you have but slumbered here/while these visions did appear."_ She smiled, moved subtly, her body light as a fairy, her demeanor vaguely apologetic and more than a little mischievous. _"And this weak and idle theme,/ no more yielding but a dream/gentles, do not reprehend./ If you pardon, we will mend./ And as I am an honest Puck,/ if we have unearned luck/ now to scape the serpent's tongue,/ we will make amends ere long;/ else the Puck a liar call./ So goodnight, unto you all./ Give me your hands, if we be friends,/ and Robin shall restore amends."_

She finished, and lowered her outstretched hands, taking a deep breath to bring herself back to herself. Yes, she thought, there was definitely a bad taste in her mouth. But she had never understood why it had caused that reaction. Not until now. Here. With this man.

"I would not have guessed that to be your least favorite," Jareth said, his voice caustic. "Forgive me if I demand to know why."

"Because," she said, "I never liked the idea that what happened in the play was only a dream. I wanted it to be real, and Puck was offering to take it all away, the good and the bad, and make it seem like nothing more than an illusion. I know how you hate the phrase, but it never seemed fair."

"The faeries play terrible tricks with the mortals in that play," he said. "One would think you would not be so forgiving. Wouldn't it be easier if they merely woke up and went on with their lives, as if none of it had happened?"

"There's so little magic, in our world," Sarah said softly, seriously. "I wouldn't regret a minute of it. Even if some parts of it were awful. Even if I were being manipulated or teased or mocked. I would hold on to what magic I'd been given, and be grateful the rest of my life that I'd been lucky enough to have it."

"Yet you forgot your friends," he said.

"I didn't forget them," she said. "I never forgot them. I was growing up, and I worried that they had forgotten me. That you had even forgotten me."

"You," Jareth said, stepping forward, into her spotlight. "Are not something I'm likely to forget." He reached for her, and she didn't stop him. His hand smoothed over her hair, then dropped to fist at his side. She watched his eyes cloud, stormy with some emotion she couldn't name.


	12. One

"Jareth," she said, and reached out to touch his face. He was so beautiful, she thought, tracing the curve of his cheekbone with her fingers, the delicate line of his lips with the pad of her thumb. He didn't move, didn't blink, just watched her with that strange darkness in his eyes. She touched the cobweb softness of his hair, then trailed her fingers over the edge of his jaw and down the column of his throat. She hesitated only briefly before sliding them down further, over the hard breastbone, only stopped from exploring the muscles in his abdomen when her fingers snagged on the pendant that hung around his neck.

She lifted it. It was heavy and made of what looked to be solid gold. The top was triangular, and it curved down into two thick horns at the bottom. In the center was a tiny relief of a goblin face. She ran her thumb over it. It looked like it was sticking out its tongue.

"What is it like, being the King of the Goblins?" He laughed softly, and she felt it rumble in his chest, through her knuckles where they were brushing his skin. Fascinated, she laid the pendant gently back where it belonged, and slid his shirt open another tantalizing inch. His skin was so smooth, she marveled, dusted with fine blonde hair that curled crisply under her fingers, nearly invisible.

"It is difficult," he said, his voice low and rough, "to put it in perspective. After all, I've been the Goblin King for a very, very long time."

When he spoke, she could feel the faint vibrations through her fingertips, and feel his chest rise and fall with each breath he took. Her other hand clearly had a mind of its own, too, for it reached up to touch the smooth column of his throat, the better to feel those vibrations.

"Goblins are not the most intelligent of creatures," he said, and the rough texture of his voice buzzed against her nerves. She stroked his throat, and he _purred_ , lifting his chin like a cat begging for a scratch. With a smile she indulged him, playfully scoring her nails over the skin beneath his jaw. He groaned. She wondered if his "acute" sense of touch extended beyond just his hands.

"They require constant attention, and more than a little patience. I am afraid sometimes," he purred again and closed his eyes when she found the sensitive hollow below his ear and softly ran the tip of one finger over it. "I am afraid sometimes that I don't have quite enough patience."

She was thoroughly enjoying this power she had over him. His hands were tight fists, his eyes closed, his head turned to give her better access. His entire body was rigid. His _entire_ body, she confirmed, glancing down. She slid her hands into the vee of his shirt, pushing the soft fabric open and giving her better access to the smooth planes of his chest.

"They are constantly causing mischief of one sort or another. As they're incredibly difficult to kill, it doesn't become a problem until— _grrrrrrrr..."_ she laughed a little at the low growl he made when she skimmed her nails over one hard nipple. His eyes slitted open and he regarded her with a look that would have melted an iceberg. "Until they start damaging things."

She splayed her fingers wide, her thumbs touching, and ran her hands down the taut muscles of his abdomen, pausing to dip her thumbs into the indent of his navel. The sound he made then was totally inhuman, a delicious contrast to such a human part of him. Her thumbs brushed lower, stopped only by the ridge of his belt.

"Chicken," he groaned.

"What?" Her gaze flew to his face. His head was tossed back, hair wild, eyes closed. He took a deep breath.

"Chickens, they're everywhere. For four thousand years I've tried to understand why goblins feel they need to keep chickens for pets, and I still don't understand it. Filthy, disgusting creatures."

"Goblins?"

"Chickens. And you're not supposed to be asking multiple questions," he said, as her hands pushed his shirt open wider. She leaned forward and licked his breastbone with the tip of her tongue. She felt his body clench even harder. "If you want me to finish answering your question, you should stop that immediately." He didn't sound very convincing.

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured, noncommittal. _So it's fair for him to distract me_ , she thought wickedly, _but not for me to distract him? We'll see. After all, he's the one who taught me that life wasn't fair in the first place._ She kissed his chest softly, tasting him. This close the smell of him was driving her wild, but she kept a firm grip on her control. He sighed almost imperceptibly.

"It's inherited," he said, "my title. Someday in the far, far distant future, I suppose I will pass it on to my child." There was an odd quality to his voice, a vague wistfulness, but she couldn't tell without asking another question if that was for the thought of having a child, or no longer being King of the Goblins.

"Most of the time, it's boring," he said, the muscles in his throat going taut as she skimmed her lips over his chest, pausing to lick tentatively at his left nipple. "Until, of course, some foolish mortal wishes away a child. Then the fun begins." She nipped the sensitive flesh, eliciting another growl. He bared his teeth and half lifted one hand, as if to sink it into her hair, but stopped himself. It was odd, she thought, how before he couldn't keep his hands off of her, and now he was hesitating to touch her.

She _wanted_ him to touch her. Wanted him to give her that satisfaction, to prove her power over him. Was this what he felt, too? This craving for her to give in to him?

_Fear me, love me, do as I say, and I shall be your slave..._ The words had haunted her for years, but never had she understood them so clearly. She turned her head to listen to the sound of his heart hammering wildly in his chest. Power, she thought, went both ways. You have to give it up in order to get it back.

_Like love?_ her heart whispered. What would it be like, she wondered, to love this creature? To be truly loved by him? _Dangerous. Exciting. Challenging._ Would he waver, she wondered. Would he grow bored with her as she grew older? Would he find another mortal to play his games with? Or another creature like himself? Beautiful and seductive in ways she could never be?

"It's very lonely," he said, as if he were reading her thoughts, his voice distant and distracted as she traced whorls and patterns over his ribs with her nails, "being the only one of my kind in my kingdom. There have never been many of us, now we are scattered so far, and the process of making more is," she nipped at his collarbone. "Complicated," he finished, panting slightly. "I never thought to find—," he broke off roughly as her nails raked over his back, and he did reach for her then, but it was to grab her roughly by the upper arms and push her away.

His gaze was dark with longing, the pupils so hugely dilated that they no longer appeared mismatched. He dragged air into his lungs and held her from him, eyes narrowing in realization. Oh yes, she thought with wicked satisfaction, his sense of touch was very acute. "But I digress," he muttered.

He pushed her away and strode off into the shadows. When he spoke again, it was from the darkness, and his voice was flat and clinical—and she knew it was only from supreme self-control.

"Every day is much like another," he said. "Although 'day' is relative, since we do not measure time the same way Underground. For most of the day I preside over the Goblin court, hearing grievances, of which there are a never-ending supply. I take my meals alone. I answer correspondence from the other Kingdoms. I travel the Labyrinth, taking care of any problems, and making improvements. If someone is foolish enough to wish away a child, then I take care of that little annoyance. Afterwards, I send the wisher home, memory modified, and make sure the little creature is installed in his or her new home. I take a hot bath, try to read a book, and fall asleep more often than not sitting in the windowseat, with a goblin or two curled up on my feet, and wake up with a stiff neck and a sore back."

"No wonder you're so irritable," she said, "if that's how you've spent the last four thousand years."

He laughed darkly. "That was rather clever, by the way," he said. "You're learning."

"I had a good teacher," she replied modestly.

"And what, precisely, has he taught you?"

"To be careful what I say," she said. "So forgive me if I refuse to tell you."

He laughed again, and stepped into the light. Deja vu, she thought. All he needed was a pair of very tight white pants, and a fluffy cape. Although, to be honest, the leather suited him so much better.

"It appears to be my turn again," he said. She nodded. Funny, she thought, she'd almost forgotten they were still playing.

He came to stand before her again, well out of arms reach. Wary and, she thought, a little unsure. "I wish," he said, then paused and appeared for the first time to really think about it. It occurred to her then that he'd planned all of his previous wishes. Perhaps had been planning them for a very long time. Now there was something to think about.

"I wish," he said, finally, "you would...surprise me."

She blinked. How? "You'll just read my mind," she said. "It's not possible."

"I can't read your mind, Sarah," he said, and she glanced at the crystal hanging from her belt for confirmation. _Well,_ she thought, _what do you know?_ _But then how...?_

"Your face gives you away," he said. "For one who knows you well enough."

"Well, how nice for you, Mr. Poker Face," she said sarcastically. All those years of theater training should have taught her to modulate her expression better.

"Will you grant my wish?" He asked, his voice quiet.

She thought. Surprise him? What would surprise him the most? She could, she supposed, always hop on one foot and cluck like a chicken, but she'd already done that once tonight and her pride wasn't exactly up to it.

She could tell him that she was falling for him, but she suspected he knew that.

She could strip naked and beg him to take her right there on the stage, but she suspected he wanted that.

What wouldn't he expect? What didn't he know?


	13. Thirteen

"You were wrong," she said, struck by a sudden inspiration, "about my favorite speech."

"Excuse me?" he said, clearly startled.

"You said that the 'give me the child' monologue was my favorite. You were wrong."

"You're lying," he said. "You practiced that speech for hours in the park."

_And that,_ she thought, _is how you surprise an all powerful being: tell them they don't know everything._

She took the crystal from the scarf and held it up so he could see that it was dark. "That wasn't my favorite monologue. You were wrong."

"Then what was?" he demanded.

" _Once upon a time,"_ she began, quoting from the book, retelling it as it had been written, and not the way she'd told it to Toby on that dark stormy night over ten years before. It was her favorite passage, because it had been her favorite story, and nothing had been more romantic to her than the words 'Once upon a time.' _"There was a beautiful young girl whose mother had died, and father had remarried a lovely but wicked woman. At first, she was kind to the girl, and treated her as a daughter. In time, however, the stepmother bore the man a son, and then she became cruel and vicious, forcing the girl to act as the boy's nursemaid, and the young girl became practically a slave. But what nobody knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and had given her certain powers..."_ Her voice trailed off, and Jareth, for the first time, looked stricken.

And then she knew.

She knew what it was that had been bothering her. He'd claimed as his prize that which she had taken from him, but he'd never specified what that something was. She'd assumed it was Toby, but that couldn't be right. He'd taken Toby, and she'd rescued him, despite the fact that she'd given him away so freely. But if the story was true, the only thing she'd taken from him was something that he, too, had freely given. Her heart pounded in her chest.

If it was true...

"Did you?" she asked. "Did you love me and give me certain powers?"

"You assume a great deal," he said, his face pale and angry.

"Answer the question, Jareth," she said. He snarled and turned away, and for a long moment, she thought he wouldn't answer, and then she wouldn't know what to do. Somehow, she hadn't expected to win so easily.

"I will answer your question, but first you must answer one for me," he said, over his shoulder.

"That's not part of the bargain," she said. He turned and came back, reaching out and grasping her upper arms so that she was forced to look at him. Once more she could not read the expression on his face, but his eyes were searching hers, looking for something with a desperation she'd only seen once before, while standing on a barren bit of rock, with the world falling down around her. She wasn't so sure that history wasn't repeating itself.

"I am willing to risk losing our game for one answer," he said seriously. "Are you willing to risk winning it for the same?"

"That makes no sense," she said.

" _Lord, what fools these mortals be,"_ he said. "Answer me this: what would you have missed, Sarah, if you had answered me differently all those years ago?"

"A chance to grow up," she said, thinking, "A chance to become who I became, on my own without you molding me into whatever you wanted. A chance to know the little brother I saved. A chance to make amends with my stepmother, to understand my mother, to forgive my father. A chance to do this," she gestured at the theater, "A chance to discover what love is, and how many different forms it can take. A chance to discover what I wanted, even if it took me until now to do so."

"If all of that is true then you know the answer to your question," he said.

"I need to hear you say it," she said, refusing to give an inch. He let go of her, and she could still feel the imprint of his fingers on her arms. She supposed, uncaring, that she would have ten perfect bruises there later.

"I loved you, not knowing what that meant," he said, sounding defeated. "I gave you the ability to call on myself or my subjects for help out of a misplaced sense of amusement. I never expected you to need that ability. I expected to love you fleetingly, from afar. And someday, I thought, when you were grown and had forgotten the book you'd loved as a child, and your belief in magic had faded, those powers, too, would fade. But you surprised me. You wished away a child."

She tried to remember to breathe.

"And those powers I'd given you, gave you something no other mortal has ever had who ran the Labyrinth to retrieve a child: my subjects helped you when you needed it. More than they should have. The dwarf was meant to betray you, the monster to cause you to run in the other direction, and Didymus, silly little Didymus, should have dumped you all back into the Bog. The Wise Man should have convinced you to go back to the start. The Fireys would have chased you until the time limit was up, except they chased you toward the dwarf, who came back for you. Every time I turned around those powers mocked me, twisted my Labyrinth until it was no longer mine to command, but yours." His voice was bitter now, but he continued.

"In the end, you had won my respect, my admiration, and my love. I wanted you then, more than you could possibly imagine. No other mortal had ever even come close to besting me. No other woman had ever been my match. And I had personally handed you the tools to defeat me. You came alive, in my Labyrinth. Instead of loathing the creatures in it, you loved them. Instead of fearing me, you fought me. What wouldn't I have given to possess someone like you?"

For that, she had no answer.

"You were so young, though. Still a child by your kind's measure, and even younger by mine. I offered you everything, hoping you would stay, but terrified you would, too. What would you lose, if I took you then? You had such potential. I was oddly relieved that you defeated me. I have waited for so long, hoping, wondering if all I had ever done was in vain. I cannot live only within your dreams, Sarah. When I felt your wish tonight, I had convinced myself you had forgotten me. I would have taken back that power you have over me, and my kingdom. But I find that you alone in this world are my match, you alone are worthy of them." He was quiet then, his eyes intent on hers.

Finally he said, defeated, "I have no wishes left."

There was nothing left around them as they stood in the pool of light. The theater was forgotten, the world forgotten. He had come, once more, to beg for her. She marveled at it, that this beautiful, mercurial creature had let her go, hoping that she would come back. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she wanted this feeling to last; this soaring, incredible, magical feeling that gave her heart wings. This was the inevitable moment that her entire life had been building toward. Everything she had done, everything she was, she was for him.

"Here we are," she said. "Back at the beginning."

"I would offer you your dreams," he said. "But I know you would not accept them."

"No," she said, looking down at the crystal in her hand, and holding it out to him. "But I would offer you yours."

He glanced at it, confused.

"I don't need it any more," she said. "I'm tired of this game."

"Then neither of us wins?" he asked, incredulous.

"Does it really matter?" she asked. "After all," she added, "it wasn't about the game at all, was it?"

His eyes sparkled and he smiled then, a real smile, and it was like dawn breaking over the Labyrinth, beautiful, infinite, and wild. "Not entirely," he said. He tilted his head to one side.

"There's still the matter of my debt," he said. She shrugged. Somehow, she wasn't worried about that anymore.

"What do you want, Goblin King?" she asked. He stepped forward, and took off his glove, and placed his hand over the crystal where it rested in her palm. His fingers were warm, and her skin tingled.

"You," he said simply, and removed his hand. Where before there had been a crystal, there was a now a ring. The band was gold, and the stone set in the middle of it was red. It looked very familiar, like something she'd owned once, long ago, and had given away for a bit of advice. "I want you, Sarah," he said again, lifting the ring and sliding it onto her finger. "As my Queen."

She didn't say anything for a long moment. "This does mean, of course, that I'll have to whisk you away Underground," he said.

"Can I come back?" she asked. "To see my family? To work on my plays?"

"I can be cruel, Sarah," he said. "But even I am not so cruel as to never allow you to come back." His lips twisted wryly. "But you might have to convince me to be generous enough to allow you to see your stepmother."

The ring on her finger lit up, a brilliant red. He looked embarrassed. "To keep us both honest." His muttered explanation made her smile.

"I think I'll manage," she said. In fact, she thought, she had a few tricks up her sleeve that might go a long way toward convincing him to do what she wanted. She sobered, then, "But I'm mortal." He smiled at her.

"There are," he said, " a few advantages to living in a place that time does not govern. Will forever be long enough for you?"

"That's not very long at all," she said, and pulled his mouth down to hers.

His lips claimed hers in a kiss that seared her all the way to her toes. He held her as though he would never release her again. She wasn't sure she wanted him to. _This_ , she thought through the haze of pleasure his lips were causing, _this is what I wanted_. She wrapped her arms around him. She could have sworn she heard fireworks.

"What the hell is that?" Jareth demanded, dragging his mouth away and staring up at the ceiling. Outside the theater, from the direction of the street, she heard a dull roar, and overhead the sound of massive explosions.

"Fireworks," she said, smiling. "It's New Year's Eve."

"Happy Birthday," he said. "I'm afraid I forgot to bring you a gift." She laughed and kissed him again.

"My mother used to say that whomever you spent New Year's Eve with, you were destined to spend the rest of the New Year with," she said. "So I've always been very careful about who I kissed at midnight."

"Well," Jareth smiled at her, his lips curling in a way that promised all kinds of things to look forward to. "That'll be easy enough from now on, because I'm going to lock you in an oubliette with me every New Year, and your only choices will be me, or whatever Hogwart keeps in that storage closet."

"Are we done talking now?" she asked, sliding her hands into his shirt again.

"Why?" he asked, confused.

"Because," she said, her hands moving down to toy with the edge of his belt. "I have another game you might like to play."

He growled and kissed her hard, and Sarah decided that loving him would be the greatest adventure she could ever wish for.


	14. Epilogue

It was well after midnight, and blacker than the Goblin King's wardrobe in the small apartment. The only sound was some heavy breathing, and the occasional moan. A woman whispered something inaudible, and a man laughed softly, then groaned. Someone else coughed.

Silence.

"Who's there?" A woman's voice said into the darkness.

"Me," said another woman's voice, sounding highly amused. A match was struck, and a candle lit. Sarah turned to the man beside her, who wore an expensive looking black suit, and a gray silk shirt, and whose mismatched eyes regarded her with a heady mixture of lust, love, and longing.

"We have light switches, you know," she said to him.

"Considering the circumstances," Jareth said. "Candlelight was kinder." On the floor Jen squinted up at them.

"How'd you get in?" she asked. "And where'd you two disappear to? We looked for you for hours."

"We?" Sarah asked. A blonde head popped out from under the blanket, and a very mussed looking Prince Charming grinned.

"Hey man," Chet said. "Didn't see you two there."

"I stopped by to get my things," Sarah said. "We didn't mean to interrupt." She glanced pointedly at Jen, who blushed and rearranged the blanket to cover what she hadn't been covering. Then Sarah went into the spare bedroom. Jareth sank into a nearby armchair and regarded the two mortals on the floor.

"Hmm," he said, after a long moment, in which they merely stared back at him in some surprise. "I'll have to try that." Jen's mouth dropped open and Chet coughed and shifted Jen to a less acrobatic position.

Sarah returned, holding a suitcase and a smaller bag. "Jen," she said, looking down at her friend. "Please, stop drinking so much."

"Okay," Jen said. Jareth took the suitcase from Sarah, and put his arm around her. "Wait," Jen said, as he lifted the candle to blow it out. "Where are you going?"

Sarah smiled. "Home," she said, and the room went dark, and then the couple on the floor were alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally posted over 13 days, on fanfiction.net. The final chapter was posted on New Year's Eve, 2006. 
> 
> Much thanks to my beta/editor Phuriedae. Any mistakes that still linger may remain as a testament to time.


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